I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
You mean in the 3 (three) times she did PMQs !!!!!!
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
They were both rubbish. As was ‘promise everything’ deliver nothing Boris. There was nothing behind the rhetoric.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
I know no one else picked up on this but I still can't get away from the image of Miranda Richardson's Queenie in Blackadder 2, whenever I see Truss speak.
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
There are parallels between England and Labour.
Years of expectations being dashed. Uninspiring but quietly effective leader comes in and improves results, but is very boring and doesn't really seem to have any ideas for going on the attack or doing interesting things. Runs a safety first strategy that leaves fans uninspired. But when it actually comes down to it, they're able to grind out a win. For now
The unions will be lining up to milk the public purse and labour will be doling it out and claiming how good they are at fixing things as they bankrupt the country. Our money will just go to a different bunch of sharks.
Morning Malcolm, ever the optimist, I see Hope the weather is sunnier with you than your prediction for the Labour government.
How did you feel about the SNP implosion - schadenfreude or disappointment that it was the unionist parties that benefitted rather than another independence party?
Anyway, England will most likely implode at some point, maybe labour too. But I find it hard to care too much, on a lazy Sunday morning watching my kids make a play post office with chairs and blankets, a post box, some cards and an old play till, oblivious to the evils of the real Post Office
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
Sadly, that is key to getting some of the Reform vote back.
Second - actually possibly like the Liberal Democrats in 2029
Why would they not be aiming for first? The key for the non Labour parties is to spend the next five years being seen as the rightful home for those this new government will naturally let down. The Tories are unlikely to be functioning well enough to do it, so the Lib Dem’s and reform will see an opportunity.
There's a question over whether you can present yourself as an alternative government with fewer than a hundred MPs? - but the third party's position is certainly a lot more credible than was advancing Jo Swinson for PM.
If the next government isn't a Labour one, someone needs to win a lot of currently held Labour seats. The LibDems are remarkably badly placed to win any of them.
Next time, either the Tories recover and win Labour seats, or Reform breaks through in the batch where they are currently second to Labour, or Labour holds most of them and stays in power. There are probably just a very few where the Greens might come through, as observed on the previous thread (remember some PB'ers argued that a Green vote share of 6-7% was never going to happen; it just did).
Almost as a separate election, there will be a battle between the Tories and LibDems in the south - will the Tories reverse the LibDem surge, or will the LibDems supplant the Tories as part of the Home Counties? That will be a fascinating question, almost entirely a sideshow as far as the government that follows is concerned.
I've seen a remark in LD circles that 'we now have many MPs where we have councillor concentrations than previously."
So we need a look at remaining LD Councillor's with no MP.
Kingston upon Hull? Watford? Three Rivers? (South West Herftordshire)
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
But Brexit is essentially a destructive project, and insofar as the previous government tried to build something in its place, Farage did his best to destroy that as well. Farage is expert at criticising and opposing but has no demonstrated capabilty to create anything worthwhile, or to work with others in doing so. He's leading his third political party (actually a business) because he's not a team player and only happy when he has sole charge.
That's why his declared plan to spend five years creating a "national movement" to take on the government in 2029 is most unlikely to come to anything. Thus we need to consider what will happen to his voters.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
And what was Brexit but a fantasy project?
Hardly a fantasy as we are out of the EU and Starmer has said we will not rejoin in his lifetime
You call what we have Brexit? It's a half-arsed dog's dinner of a fudge - Brexit in name only. Each day it gets less and less popular as its absurdity becomes increasingly apparent. Meanwhile the grown-ups in the room attempt to make it workable.
You should be applauding their efforts, not condemning them. Goodness knows what a proper Brexit would look like, but you can guarantee it wouldn't be fun.
The BBC is often criticised for their election reporting which I have tended to not agree with, but this time I will agree it was dire. On the night two of us were feeding back results to our party in the LD office. I was using PB the other was using Sky. We were consistently 10 min ahead of the BBC which we had on the TV.
And this morning the BBC were still reporting the LDs have 71 seats and not 72.
The BBC likes to be reliable and is prepared to be slow; Sky and ITV like to be fast, one of the ways they try and peel a few viewers away from our national broadcaster. But they make mistakes - having Skipton & Ripon up as an early LibDem gain, complete with incorrect figures, was a particularly egregious one.
Yep noticed that. There were several on the night. Fair point. Can't understand how they missed Inverness this morning though.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
It would have been better for your Party, Carlotta, if the Election had produced a more cleansing result. It would then have had less detritus like Jenrick to clear out before reconstruction begins.
I worry about the members, Peter.
They usually go for the most tub-thumping and dogmatic one. It really doesn't help.
I doubt they've learned many (any) lessons from this defeat.
Turned out there wasn't really any difference between genders and how they voted. Also Labour didn't do as well with 18-24 as previously, which I thought was quite surprising. Seems like good chunk of young people keen to vote Green instead of Labour. Also, 22% voted Tory or Reform, which perhaps backs up what Leon was banging on about at least a tiny bit.
Tories did really really badly with 25-44. I bet rents / mortgages / student loans. That could be a huge problem for them going forward if they want to try and recover.
Not much sign of the Hot Young Fascist phenomenon there.
Sorry for those who enjoy that prospect.
Do we have data on how efficiently the Farage Tik Tok phenomenon actually converted into youth votes?
One of my stranger post GE election chats was with one of our admin staff, a forty-something British born Sikh. She didn't vote, not feeling as if she understood enough about politics to do so. She did tell me that her 12 year old daughter was telling her to vote Reform, having seen them on TikTok. Her face fell when I told her that was Farage's bunch.
Never underestimate the power of Social Media on low information voters.
I am on TikTok, and was impressed by both the Labour and LD efforts, but also saw quite a few Reform ones. I am not sure if that was the alogarithm spying on me, or paid advertising.
I was in the pub on Friday talking to a bloke who was a gnat’s bollock away from voting Reform but in the end went Labour. But if Starmer’s shit it’ll definitely vote for Big Nige next time, he said.
So I explained to him what Farage wants to do to the NHS. I was gratified that he looked suitably chastened.
He was probably just hoping if he looked chastened you'd feel satisfied and piss off.
Oncologist Karol Sikora supported Reform's NHS policy against some fairly aggressive questioning from Kate Andrews on Spectator TV:
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
This is precisely the problem for the Tory hopefuls. Jenrick's central contention that "we lost because we didn't bloody do anything for anyone" is true. But the contenders will be all those do-ers of nothing. None of whom seemed to betray a suppressed inner drive. And the public can sniff that particular stink from a mile off.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
I know no one else picked up on this but I still can't get away from the image of Miranda Richardson's Queenie in Blackadder 2, whenever I see Truss speak.
Queenie was a far more formidable politcal operator.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
One thing that should stick firmly in the minds of all Conservatives: they can still fall further from here.
There could easily form some sort of assumption that recovery must now be automatic, so low have they fallen, and now they're out of office, but that is not the case.
It could be that Starmer continues to be a lucky general, the economy improves whilst he's in office, and he delivers some things. Meanwhile the Tories shout and scream at each other (their default) - particularly on immigration - whilst Reform sweep up all the disillusionment and votes on that anyway and continue to grow and grow.
If all that happens the Tories could completely disappear at the next GE. That's why a serious leader is needed: focused on good organisation, unification, excellent candidate selection and competent professional opposition, and not a pissing contest artist.
Excellent post. You also need someone people can respect (unlike Hague 97-01 and Milliband) and warm enough to overcome the nasty party reputation. Serious on its own is not quite enough for LotO. If they can cut through and connect you are done for as well. It’s a tough brief.
Jonathan Reynolds: "We will come for Reform.... because backing the kremlin's position in Ukraine is not in the national interest of the United Kingdom."
Interest rates would have gone up somewhat Liz Truss or not. The rise in inflation was at least initiated by the Ukraine war, and the BoE would have had to raise rates once that seeped into domestic prices, as had happened elsewhere.
The other point of note is that even if the base rate falls later this year, most are on fixed rate deals and as they get renewed the rates paid will be higher than the existing rates. There are still a lot of mortgage rises to come.
The interest rate rises in the last 18 months really have virtually nothing to do with Truss. She carried the blame as a useful scapegoat. Her policies would have been fiscally disastrous but they never actually got implemented.
The damage Truss and Kwarteng did was to investor confidence in the UK and our reputation for economic stability. That’s one thing Hunt has managed to stabilise since.
Tory members would be wise to note that Hunt held his seat against stiff odds, while Truss lost hers.
I am not expecting them to be wise.
I’m still perplexed as to why Hunt fought his seat so hard and with so much of his own money. The job obviously meant a huge amount to him.
Especially as he could have had a peerage pretty much for the asking, and certainly a much more mainstream candidate than some of the recent specimens.
It sticks in my throat a bit and it’s a concept very distant from the recent Tory party, but Occam’s Razor suggests it might be a sense of duty and willingness to serve.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
And what was Brexit but a fantasy project?
Hardly a fantasy as we are out of the EU and Starmer has said we will not rejoin in his lifetime
You call what we have Brexit? It's a half-arsed dog's dinner of a fudge - Brexit in name only. Each day it gets less and less popular as its absurdity becomes increasingly apparent. Meanwhile the grown-ups in the room attempt to make it workable.
You should be applauding their efforts, not condemning them. Goodness knows what a proper Brexit would look like, but you can guarantee it wouldn't be fun.
Customs *still* not sorted out let alone settled down and proved working. As I have to observe yet again.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
It would have been better for your Party, Carlotta, if the Election had produced a more cleansing result. It would then have had less detritus like Jenrick to clear out before reconstruction begins.
I worry about the members, Peter.
They usually go for the most tub-thumping and dogmatic one. It really doesn't help.
I doubt they've learned many (any) lessons from this defeat.
Jeeeez. One really can be deluded enough to see 1+1=2 demonstrated using marbles and still argue vociferously that it isn't the case.
Turned out there wasn't really any difference between genders and how they voted. Also Labour didn't do as well with 18-24 as previously, which I thought was quite surprising. Seems like good chunk of young people keen to vote Green instead of Labour. Also, 22% voted Tory or Reform, which perhaps backs up what Leon was banging on about at least a tiny bit.
Tories did really really badly with 25-44. I bet rents / mortgages / student loans. That could be a huge problem for them going forward if they want to try and recover.
Not much sign of the Hot Young Fascist phenomenon there.
Sorry for those who enjoy that prospect.
Do we have data on how efficiently the Farage Tik Tok phenomenon actually converted into youth votes?
One of my stranger post GE election chats was with one of our admin staff, a forty-something British born Sikh. She didn't vote, not feeling as if she understood enough about politics to do so. She did tell me that her 12 year old daughter was telling her to vote Reform, having seen them on TikTok. Her face fell when I told her that was Farage's bunch.
Never underestimate the power of Social Media on low information voters.
I am on TikTok, and was impressed by both the Labour and LD efforts, but also saw quite a few Reform ones. I am not sure if that was the alogarithm spying on me, or paid advertising.
I was in the pub on Friday talking to a bloke who was a gnat’s bollock away from voting Reform but in the end went Labour. But if Starmer’s shit it’ll definitely vote for Big Nige next time, he said.
So I explained to him what Farage wants to do to the NHS. I was gratified that he looked suitably chastened.
That was something that both Labour and Tories should have gone for in the campaign, but they let Reform be exclusively about immigration in the public mind.
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
There are parallels between England and Labour.
Years of expectations being dashed. Uninspiring but quietly effective leader comes in and improves results, but is very boring and doesn't really seem to have any ideas for going on the attack or doing interesting things. Runs a safety first strategy that leaves fans uninspired. But when it actually comes down to it, they're able to grind out a win. For now
The unions will be lining up to milk the public purse and labour will be doling it out and claiming how good they are at fixing things as they bankrupt the country. Our money will just go to a different bunch of sharks.
Morning Malcolm, ever the optimist, I see Hope the weather is sunnier with you than your prediction for the Labour government.
How did you feel about the SNP implosion - schadenfreude or disappointment that it was the unionist parties that benefitted rather than another independence party?
Anyway, England will most likely implode at some point, maybe labour too. But I find it hard to care too much, on a lazy Sunday morning watching my kids make a play post office with chairs and blankets, a post box, some cards and an old play till, oblivious to the evils of the real Post Office
Sorry, correction. It's now a pirate ship. Maybe they have been following the Post Office scandal after all!
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Interest rates would have gone up somewhat Liz Truss or not. The rise in inflation was at least initiated by the Ukraine war, and the BoE would have had to raise rates once that seeped into domestic prices, as had happened elsewhere.
The other point of note is that even if the base rate falls later this year, most are on fixed rate deals and as they get renewed the rates paid will be higher than the existing rates. There are still a lot of mortgage rises to come.
The interest rate rises in the last 18 months really have virtually nothing to do with Truss. She carried the blame as a useful scapegoat. Her policies would have been fiscally disastrous but they never actually got implemented.
The damage Truss and Kwarteng did was to investor confidence in the UK and our reputation for economic stability. That’s one thing Hunt has managed to stabilise since.
Tory members would be wise to note that Hunt held his seat against stiff odds, while Truss lost hers.
I am not expecting them to be wise.
I’m still perplexed as to why Hunt fought his seat so hard and with so much of his own money. The job obviously meant a huge amount to him.
Especially as he could have had a peerage pretty much for the asking, and certainly a much more mainstream candidate than some of the recent specimens.
It sticks in my throat a bit and it’s a concept very distant from the recent Tory party, but Occam’s Razor suggests it might be a sense of duty and willingness to serve.
My thoughts too. He’ll be useful on the opposition front bench.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
Sadly, that is key to getting some of the Reform vote back.
Some fucker on here (can't remember who) farted blood with shock when I said that yesterday.
It's obvious want the Fukkers want in a leader. Late middle aged white man who can go into a pub and confidently order a 'Scottish Wine' while proffering a twenty, crisply folded along the long axis and held between the first and second fingers. Basically, somebody as close to Mike Baldwin as they can find.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
But Brexit is essentially a destructive project, and insofar as the previous government tried to build something in its place, Farage did his best to destroy that as well. Farage is expert at criticising and opposing but has no demonstrated capabilty to create anything worthwhile, or to work with others in doing so. He's leading his third political party (actually a business) because he's not a team player and only happy when he has sole charge.
That's why his declared plan to spend five years creating a "national movement" to take on the government in 2029 is most unlikely to come to anything. Thus we need to consider what will happen to his voters.
To be honest it is far too early to see how the reform - conservative drama plays out, but expect to see Farage in the media far more than his actual standing deserves
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
I was thinking this about Kemi Badenoch. She has plenty of energy, a good thing, which never seems to be directed towards anything useful, except possibly her self-promotion. She might make an OK LOTO as they don't have to do anything but not sure it takes the Conservatives in the direction they need to go. Question for them I suppose.
Badenochs popularity is a puzzle. She doesn’t come across very well. Somewhat pompous and narrowly party political. Not someone anyone could warm to outside the confines of the Tory party. Can’t think of a Labour equivalent, maybe a more ideological and less charismatic Ed Milliband.
According to Nadine Dorries, Kemi Badenoch is the chosen candidate of the shadowy cabal that runs the party, and Michael Gove. But even if that is wrong, who are the alternatives? Kemi seems at least as plausible as most of the other likely candidates.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
This is precisely the problem for the Tory hopefuls. Jenrick's central contention that "we lost because we didn't bloody do anything for anyone" is true. But the contenders will be all those do-ers of nothing. None of whom seemed to betray a suppressed inner drive. And the public can sniff that particular stink from a mile off.
The Tories have a massive problem going forward. Their position is similar to that which Labour was in following Corbyn's defeat, but much worse. They have fewer seats and a rift that is oceans wide.
I honestly don't know where they go from here. It hasn't helped that of the 121 remaining MPs there are as many rogues and dinosaurs as people of good-will and common sense.
Interest rates would have gone up somewhat Liz Truss or not. The rise in inflation was at least initiated by the Ukraine war, and the BoE would have had to raise rates once that seeped into domestic prices, as had happened elsewhere.
The other point of note is that even if the base rate falls later this year, most are on fixed rate deals and as they get renewed the rates paid will be higher than the existing rates. There are still a lot of mortgage rises to come.
The interest rate rises in the last 18 months really have virtually nothing to do with Truss. She carried the blame as a useful scapegoat. Her policies would have been fiscally disastrous but they never actually got implemented.
The damage Truss and Kwarteng did was to investor confidence in the UK and our reputation for economic stability. That’s one thing Hunt has managed to stabilise since.
Tory members would be wise to note that Hunt held his seat against stiff odds, while Truss lost hers.
I am not expecting them to be wise.
I’m still perplexed as to why Hunt fought his seat so hard and with so much of his own money. The job obviously meant a huge amount to him.
Yet he had a choice of two seats to pick from when his seat was split in two and he picked the more difficult of the two and the one that represented less of his old seat. Several reasons have been suggested.
Although we almost picked up the 2nd seat of the two, we really didn't work it as much as the seat he stood in. His was in theory a much easier target. I don't know why we didn't get it. It should have been much easier than several others we picked up in Surrey with much less effort from us.
Voters do generally like having an MP who is a 'big name' or otherwise well known, and I expect that Hunt's gravitas and work rescuing the Tories from the worst of Johnson and Truss gave him some immunity from the swing that swept his colleagues away.
The evidence is that the ground campaign against Hunt made an impact - the Labour vote went down in Hunt's seat and they saved their deposit by just three votes (you were that close to a full recount!), and the LibDem vote rose whereas in Farnham the Labour vote went up and the LibDem vote didn't. The Green share also didn't perk up much in Godalming.
(this could also point to an errors in the way the notional result for the two parts of the old seat were calculated?)
Hunt kept Reform to under 9%, whereas in Farnham they got nearly 12%, and Hunt's own share dropped just 11% whereas in Farnham the Cons share was down 24%.
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
I cheered an awful lot. I remember being particularly delighted to see Simon Clarke gone from MSEC.
While I know we are going to spend a lot of time forensically examining everything the Tories did wrong this time round and pontificating on how big a problem the giant majority is going to be for Starmer, I think it is also important that we pause from time to time to laugh uncontrollably at the SNP
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
They were both rubbish. As was ‘promise everything’ deliver nothing Boris. There was nothing behind the rhetoric.
That doesn't answer my point. Liz Truss gave proper answers that spoke to her beliefs. Rishi Sunk did yah boo etc. That's why I wonder whether your allegation of Truss's lack of seriousness is based on what you hear from her, or just what you expect to hear.
She has an awkward way of speaking, facial expressions etc. But what she's saying is often quite serious, and in terms of her message about the fundamental ungovernability of institutions, very useful.
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
There are parallels between England and Labour.
Years of expectations being dashed. Uninspiring but quietly effective leader comes in and improves results, but is very boring and doesn't really seem to have any ideas for going on the attack or doing interesting things. Runs a safety first strategy that leaves fans uninspired. But when it actually comes down to it, they're able to grind out a win. For now
The unions will be lining up to milk the public purse and labour will be doling it out and claiming how good they are at fixing things as they bankrupt the country. Our money will just go to a different bunch of sharks.
Morning Malcolm, ever the optimist, I see Hope the weather is sunnier with you than your prediction for the Labour government.
How did you feel about the SNP implosion - schadenfreude or disappointment that it was the unionist parties that benefitted rather than another independence party?
Anyway, England will most likely implode at some point, maybe labour too. But I find it hard to care too much, on a lazy Sunday morning watching my kids make a play post office with chairs and blankets, a post box, some cards and an old play till, oblivious to the evils of the real Post Office
Sorry, correction. It's now a pirate ship. Maybe they have been following the Post Office scandal after all!
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
It would have been better for your Party, Carlotta, if the Election had produced a more cleansing result. It would then have had less detritus like Jenrick to clear out before reconstruction begins.
I worry about the members, Peter.
They usually go for the most tub-thumping and dogmatic one. It really doesn't help.
I doubt they've learned many (any) lessons from this defeat.
If I could think of anything helpful to say, Casino, I would, so I'll settle for Good Luck. You know I mean it.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
The first that needs to be slapped around the head with an inflated puffer fish, as a reality check.
You stand fuck-all chance, Jenrick. Anybody synonymous with scandal condemns the Conservative Partyin 2029 to 2024 take 2. We need a clean skin.
Who are you curious about for leader?
Claire Courtinho fits the bill for whats needed, of those re-elected.
Although let's see who gets Rishi's seat when he does a runner over the summer. I'd still stick with Mordaunt - if she gets it.
You've stuck at being a PM stan, I'll give you that.
Imagine if she somehow came back as leader and immediately promised to do that fucking tidal power thing you're always banging on about. Your prostate would spontaneously combust.
Second - actually possibly like the Liberal Democrats in 2029
Why would they not be aiming for first? The key for the non Labour parties is to spend the next five years being seen as the rightful home for those this new government will naturally let down. The Tories are unlikely to be functioning well enough to do it, so the Lib Dem’s and reform will see an opportunity.
There's a question over whether you can present yourself as an alternative government with fewer than a hundred MPs? - but the third party's position is certainly a lot more credible than was advancing Jo Swinson for PM.
If the next government isn't a Labour one, someone needs to win a lot of currently held Labour seats. The LibDems are remarkably badly placed to win any of them.
Next time, either the Tories recover and win Labour seats, or Reform breaks through in the batch where they are currently second to Labour, or Labour holds most of them and stays in power. There are probably just a very few where the Greens might come through, as observed on the previous thread (remember some PB'ers argued that a Green vote share of 6-7% was never going to happen; it just did).
Almost as a separate election, there will be a battle between the Tories and LibDems in the south - will the Tories reverse the LibDem surge, or will the LibDems supplant the Tories as part of the Home Counties? That will be a fascinating question, almost entirely a sideshow as far as the government that follows is concerned.
I've seen a remark in LD circles that 'we now have many MPs where we have councillor concentrations than previously."
So we need a look at remaining LD Councillor's with no MP.
Kingston upon Hull? Watford? Three Rivers? (South West Herftordshire)
Haven't checked pre-2024 results.
Hinckley&Bsworth, Harborough,Oadby&Wigston, and Rutland&Stamford all near me if the LD surge wants to expand north.
Indeed Leicester seems to be where the divide is. North of Leicester went Red in the East Midlands, stayed blue South and East of Leicester.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
Hang on - Galloway is an Islamic sectarian. Is there evidence for this serious accusation for the successful independent Islamic bloc candidates?
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
Sadly, that is key to getting some of the Reform vote back.
Some fucker on here (can't remember who) farted blood with shock when I said that yesterday.
It's obvious want the Fukkers want in a leader. Late middle aged white man who can go into a pub and confidently order a 'Scottish Wine' while proffering a twenty, crisply folded along the long axis and held between the first and second fingers. Basically, somebody as close to Mike Baldwin as they can find.
Is there anyone particularly upset by the election? A lot of upsides across the political spectrum: Labour won a landslide Tories still breathing Best LibDem result in a century RefUK on the board Greens won 4 seats SNP routed
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
Sadly, that is key to getting some of the Reform vote back.
Some fucker on here (can't remember who) farted blood with shock when I said that yesterday.
It's obvious want the Fukkers want in a leader. Late middle aged white man who can go into a pub and confidently order a 'Scottish Wine' while proffering a twenty, crisply folded along the long axis and held between the first and second fingers. Basically, somebody as close to Mike Baldwin as they can find.
I can't wait to see your commentary if Reform end up led by Sia Yusuf.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
Liz Truss.
You're just saying that as you're one of those lefty Tory haters who keep piling on poor Liz for no or partisan reasons.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
Hang on - Galloway is an Islamic sectarian. Is there evidence for this serious accusation for the successful independent Islamic bloc candidates?
If not I'll have to apologise for calling them the Gaza bros.
Is there anyone particularly upset by the election? A lot of upsides across the political spectrum: Labour won a landslide Tories still breathing Best LibDem result in a century RefUK on the board Greens won 4 seats SNP routed
The graph looks interesting. But how should it be interpreted? The vertical axis appears to measure the deviation of constituency labour shares from the national average (though can't be sure in the absence of explanatory notes). However it does not represent the swing away from the Conservatives because there is no comparator from an earlier election. With the y-axis understood to be Lab shares in 2024, the constituency-level correlation between that and the percentage of mortgage payers suggests that mortage payers tended to vote Labour in 2024. But we do not know how that compares with the previous election. The tendency might be less than or greater than before. In any event the lowess smoother is a distraction, the point is made just as easily with a straight line drawn through the point cloud, or even without one.
This is the list of the 22 Roman Catholic Cathedrals in England.
Arundel Cathedral - CONSERVATIVE St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham - LABOUR? Brentwood Cathedral - CONSERVATIVE ? Cathedral of St Michael and St George, Aldershot - LABOUR Clifton Cathedral Lancaster Cathedral - LABOUR Leeds Cathedral - LABOUR Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral - LABOUR Middlesbrough Cathedral - LABOUR St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne - LABOUR Northampton Cathedral St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich - LABOUR Nottingham Cathedral - LABOUR Old Sarum Cathedral Plymouth Cathedral - LABOUR Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, Portsmouth Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Salford Cathedral - LABOUR Cathedral Church of St Marie, Sheffield - LABOUR Shrewsbury Cathedral - LABOUR St George's Cathedral, Southwark - LABOUR Westminster Cathedral - LABOUR
I'm a bit less reliable on these, as I am not sure exactly where they all are to within a stone's throw.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
This is precisely the problem for the Tory hopefuls. Jenrick's central contention that "we lost because we didn't bloody do anything for anyone" is true. But the contenders will be all those do-ers of nothing. None of whom seemed to betray a suppressed inner drive. And the public can sniff that particular stink from a mile off.
The Tories have a massive problem going forward. Their position is similar to that which Labour was in following Corbyn's defeat, but much worse. They have fewer seats and a rift that is oceans wide.
I honestly don't know where they go from here. It hasn't helped that of the 121 remaining MPs there are as many rogues and dinosaurs as people of good-will and common sense.
This is compounded by the fact that they are not in Government, so they don't get to set the agenda. If UKGov are doing a policy announcement about the Garibaldi Biscuit Quota, then that's what is discussed today, however much the Conservatives would like to say "Rwanda" or whatever.
Starmer is unusual in that he has done nearly all of this on his own without significant allies. It is more common for there to be a team, like Blair and Brown or Cameron and Osborne, that can give each other support and bring different sets of allies and different skills to the cause. I don't get the impression that Reeves, for example, has much support in the party. Rayner has allied herself to him quite closely but will she stick by him when the going gets tough?
The Tories need a team with an entourage and think tanks to provide the ideas and some of the analysis. I am not seeing that in any part of the party at the moment. It may take a few years in opposition for some sort of alternative program for government to emerge but that is ok, all they have right now is time.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
One thing that should stick firmly in the minds of all Conservatives: they can still fall further from here.
There could easily form some sort of assumption that recovery must now be automatic, so low have they fallen, and now they're out of office, but that is not the case.
It could be that Starmer continues to be a lucky general, the economy improves whilst he's in office, and he delivers some things. Meanwhile the Tories shout and scream at each other (their default) - particularly on immigration - whilst Reform sweep up all the disillusionment and votes on that anyway and continue to grow and grow.
If all that happens the Tories could completely disappear at the next GE. That's why a serious leader is needed: focused on good organisation, unification, excellent candidate selection and competent professional opposition, and not a pissing contest artist.
I agree. Taking Jonathan's point, neither Johnson nor Truss nor Sunak demonstrated that they wanted to get to the top of politics because of a lifelong urge to improve our country; because they wanted to 'do something' rather than 'be someone'.
Johnson wanted the job just because, to sit in the big chair; Truss just wanted it for the Lolz; Sunak had the job fall into his lap and never seemed to have any agenda or aspirations of his own, beyond being decent and sensible, and he threw away being sensible so very quickly.
The Tories need to find someone with a driving mission to make the country better in some clear and understandable ways.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
Hang on - Galloway is an Islamic sectarian. Is there evidence for this serious accusation for the successful independent Islamic bloc candidates?
If not I'll have to apologise for calling them the Gaza bros.
When I looked them up, that's what was on their bios.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
Liz Truss.
You're just saying that as you're one of those lefty Tory haters who keep piling on poor Liz for no or partisan reasons.
Wait...
No, he's just one of those Tories who insisted that Sunak be elected as leader, and continues to bag Truss to avoid a depressing acknowledgment of the disaster that they helped visit on the party.
The graph looks interesting. But how should it be interpreted? The vertical axis appears to measure the deviation of constituency labour shares from the national average (though can't be sure in the absence of explanatory notes). However it does not represent the swing away from the Conservatives because there is no comparator from an earlier election. With the y-axis understood to be Lab shares in 2024, the constituency-level correlation between that and the percentage of mortgage payers suggests that mortage payers tended to vote Labour in 2024. But we do not know how that compares with the previous election. The tendency might be less than or greater than before. In any event the lowess smoother is a distraction, the point is made just as easily with a straight line drawn through the point cloud, or even without one.
The y axis can't be "Labour shares in 2024" because it goes from -40 to plus 40, and even the Tories didn't manage to find a way to score a negative vote total. My guess from the axis label "Lab1924sh" is that it is "labour vote share in 2024 - labour vote share in 2019" or something of that sort. At any rate it must be some figure calculated from a change between the two elections.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
Liz Truss.
You're just saying that as you're one of those lefty Tory haters who keep piling on poor Liz for no or partisan reasons.
Wait...
No, he's just one of those Tories who insisted that Sunak be elected as leader, and continues to bag Truss to avoid a depressing acknowledgment of the disaster that they helped visit on the party.
I really don't think there'll be a shortage of people blaming Sunak too in the party.
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
There are parallels between England and Labour.
Years of expectations being dashed. Uninspiring but quietly effective leader comes in and improves results, but is very boring and doesn't really seem to have any ideas for going on the attack or doing interesting things. Runs a safety first strategy that leaves fans uninspired. But when it actually comes down to it, they're able to grind out a win. For now
The unions will be lining up to milk the public purse and labour will be doling it out and claiming how good they are at fixing things as they bankrupt the country. Our money will just go to a different bunch of sharks.
Morning Malcolm, ever the optimist, I see Hope the weather is sunnier with you than your prediction for the Labour government.
How did you feel about the SNP implosion - schadenfreude or disappointment that it was the unionist parties that benefitted rather than another independence party?
Anyway, England will most likely implode at some point, maybe labour too. But I find it hard to care too much, on a lazy Sunday morning watching my kids make a play post office with chairs and blankets, a post box, some cards and an old play till, oblivious to the evils of the real Post Office
You could go make it more realistic for them by taking away their pocket money and locking them in the cupboard under the stairs?
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
The first that needs to be slapped around the head with an inflated puffer fish, as a reality check.
You stand fuck-all chance, Jenrick. Anybody synonymous with scandal condemns the Conservative Partyin 2029 to 2024 take 2. We need a clean skin.
Who are you curious about for leader?
Claire Courtinho fits the bill for whats needed, of those re-elected.
Although let's see who gets Rishi's seat when he does a runner over the summer. I'd still stick with Mordaunt - if she gets it.
Thanks. Interesting. Maybe a bit early for Courtnho I would have thought. Maybe a shadow chancellor???
Historically the winning strategy seems to be to find an obvious, PM in waiting rather than skipping a generation for the sake of it.
Is Mourdaunt your Blair, Cameron or Starmer figure? If she is, can she control the right and the Mail? That has been her Achilles heel.
We could have had Mordaunt. Almost certainly would, if the Mail hadn't been so determined to do the bidding of others in putting the boot in. The Mail has an enormous amount of responsibility for what went wrong at the top of Government in recent years. Not that they will ever take any of that responsibility.
Courtinho would have five years to show her mettle before going before the voters. I suspect she would play well with women, especially those we lost to the LibDems, whilst building the case for a Conservative Party aimed at growth, one that was no longer "fuck business".
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
This is precisely the problem for the Tory hopefuls. Jenrick's central contention that "we lost because we didn't bloody do anything for anyone" is true. But the contenders will be all those do-ers of nothing. None of whom seemed to betray a suppressed inner drive. And the public can sniff that particular stink from a mile off.
The Tories have a massive problem going forward. Their position is similar to that which Labour was in following Corbyn's defeat, but much worse. They have fewer seats and a rift that is oceans wide.
I honestly don't know where they go from here. It hasn't helped that of the 121 remaining MPs there are as many rogues and dinosaurs as people of good-will and common sense.
Yes, the conventional wisdom before Thursday was that although the leading right wingers among the big beasts would retain their seats, on the backbenches we would see a more centrist party emerge. I do not think that is what has happened, with so many safe seats having fallen, leaving the CCHQ-picked newcomers with their dreams in tatters.
It may be that this is why people like David Cameron have urged a long, slow process to replace Rishi Sunak, in order to allow new talent to emerge (from where?). The question then is how urgently does Rishi want to leave the stage. Despite the widespread belief he has a Californian exit planned, Rishi has said more than once he will be here for the duration. Is his daughters' education a factor? Who knows?
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
I have no doubt you are correct, but the rise of Reform and the right in Europe is not something easily dismissed
I have no regrets voting for Labour and think Starmer will do a decent job. I am impressed with the emphasis on honesty and integrity, after the Boris era. But I think the assumption that everything is now 'back to normal' is quite severely mistaken.
I do think that the greatest threat to democracy is not the Reform party but the dismissal and ostracisation of the Reform party. They should be able to represent their voters on things like 'woke' , 'immigration', 'net zero' , 'low traffic zones' without being slandered or defamed because amongst all the misinformation on every point there is something of value which Labour should take in to account. The 'woke' stuff has gone way too far. Illegal immigration is a massive problem and the asylum system is a failure. Net Zero imposes costs on working people which are too casually shrugged off. If the governing party can take this in to account then it defuses the threat from the reform party. If it goes full on culture war against the 'far right' as many of its MP's/members/supporters would like then it just perpetuates the polarisation and appeal of the Reform party.
Second - actually possibly like the Liberal Democrats in 2029
Why would they not be aiming for first? The key for the non Labour parties is to spend the next five years being seen as the rightful home for those this new government will naturally let down. The Tories are unlikely to be functioning well enough to do it, so the Lib Dem’s and reform will see an opportunity.
There's a question over whether you can present yourself as an alternative government with fewer than a hundred MPs? - but the third party's position is certainly a lot more credible than was advancing Jo Swinson for PM.
If the next government isn't a Labour one, someone needs to win a lot of currently held Labour seats. The LibDems are remarkably badly placed to win any of them.
Next time, either the Tories recover and win Labour seats, or Reform breaks through in the batch where they are currently second to Labour, or Labour holds most of them and stays in power. There are probably just a very few where the Greens might come through, as observed on the previous thread (remember some PB'ers argued that a Green vote share of 6-7% was never going to happen; it just did).
Almost as a separate election, there will be a battle between the Tories and LibDems in the south - will the Tories reverse the LibDem surge, or will the LibDems supplant the Tories as part of the Home Counties? That will be a fascinating question, almost entirely a sideshow as far as the government that follows is concerned.
I've seen a remark in LD circles that 'we now have many MPs where we have councillor concentrations than previously."
So we need a look at remaining LD Councillor's with no MP.
Kingston upon Hull? Watford? Three Rivers? (South West Herftordshire)
Haven't checked pre-2024 results.
Hinckley&Bsworth, Harborough,Oadby&Wigston, and Rutland&Stamford all near me if the LD surge wants to expand north.
Indeed Leicester seems to be where the divide is. North of Leicester went Red in the East Midlands, stayed blue South and East of Leicester.
Is there anyone particularly upset by the election? A lot of upsides across the political spectrum: Labour won a landslide Tories still breathing Best LibDem result in a century RefUK on the board Greens won 4 seats SNP routed
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
The two politicians of whom Starmer reminds me most are John Smith and Theresa May. Are we about to see how things might have played out if Smith had lived and won in 97 or if May had won a landslide in 17 and neutralised the right?
If you frame it like that, the challenge of who the Tories need to pick becomes harder. They need to find a Thatcher or Blair. Someone who make something happen from nowhere. A Bellingham.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
And what was Brexit but a fantasy project?
Hardly a fantasy as we are out of the EU and Starmer has said we will not rejoin in his lifetime
You call what we have Brexit? It's a half-arsed dog's dinner of a fudge - Brexit in name only. Each day it gets less and less popular as its absurdity becomes increasingly apparent. Meanwhile the grown-ups in the room attempt to make it workable.
You should be applauding their efforts, not condemning them. Goodness knows what a proper Brexit would look like, but you can guarantee it wouldn't be fun.
Where I have ever condemned efforts to have a closer relationship and even Labour's spokesperson said this morning Sunaks WF and rejoining horizon were positive, and Sunak supported Macrons outer EU proposals which Starmer will continue shortly when he hosts the next meeting in London
I have no idea what you would call us being out of the EU and little prospect of rejoining other than Brexit
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Labour celebrated election success — now they’re targeting Reform
The campaign chief Morgan McSweeney played an important role in securing the party’s triumph at the polls. Keir Starmer will look to him again for the way ahead
Morgan McSweeney is possibly the most influential figure in recent years.
Looking forward to the next few years I can certainly see a scenario where there is a break away group coming out of the Labour MP's, probably linked to Gaza, going in to opposition, and thus eroding the labour party majority.
The Tories need to find someone with a driving mission to make the country better in some clear and understandable ways.
If they want to beat Labour next time, it also needs to be demonstrably better than the Labour offering.
If, for example, it turns out that talking to the French reduces the number of small boats then promising to leave the ECHR is not a viable electoral strategy.
The Tories also need to decontaminate the brand (again)
May called them the nasty party.
BoZo made them the greedy party.
Truss the fiscally incontinent.
Richi the incompetent.
Also of note is the current cabinet has the highest proportion of publicly educated ministers in a long time.
In 5 years, will another white, male public schoolboy be acceptable again?
The highlight of the election for me was Truss getting the red card, along with JRM, from their electorate
I would give a stern warning to the conservative party to be very careful who you appoint as leader, and certainly any idea the toxic Braverman is the one is simply ridiculous
Watching Starmer ease into the role he looks like a PM and he has a carbon copy 'Blairite' cabinet
He has been well received by fellow leaders and any idea labour are going to become very unpopular anytime soon is plain wishful thinking
In Streeting Labour have a health secretary, whose first statement in office was the NHS is broken, who is impressive but will the unions be on the same page
My only reservation is just what effect Farage will have in the HOC not least he was the catalyst in the EU for Brexit and is not to be underestimated not least as the media have found a new pin up memorable of the days of Johnson
Anyway good that the GE is behind us and English fans can delight in winning on penalties whilst being rubbish in normal play !!!
Farage is getting almost as much TV coverage as Starmer.
24 hour news needs to invent it's own news agenda to remain relevant. So we can expect 60 months of wall to wall Farage and his stunts. Didn't he handle those handy hecklers brilliantly on Friday?
Only 350,000 appropriately applied votes and he would have been PM. Next time perhaps. He's "great copy" and the Conservative Party, the Fourth Estate and Mother Nature have made him what he is today.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
Jenrickio needs to find out who the Immigration Minister was and then fucking hammer them on socials.
I have some money on him. As a rule of thumb, my betting is based on the idea that the next leader is not from the BAME community (given the experience with Rishi)
Sadly, that is key to getting some of the Reform vote back.
Some fucker on here (can't remember who) farted blood with shock when I said that yesterday.
It's obvious want the Fukkers want in a leader. Late middle aged white man who can go into a pub and confidently order a 'Scottish Wine' while proffering a twenty, crisply folded along the long axis and held between the first and second fingers. Basically, somebody as close to Mike Baldwin as they can find.
I can't wait to see your commentary if Reform end up led by Sia Yusuf.
Farage trolling everyone with Sia Yusuf. Who do you think will be in charge,?
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
Liz Truss.
You're just saying that as you're one of those lefty Tory haters who keep piling on poor Liz for no or partisan reasons.
Wait...
No, he's just one of those Tories who insisted that Sunak be elected as leader, and continues to bag Truss to avoid a depressing acknowledgment of the disaster that they helped visit on the party.
I really don't think there'll be a shortage of people blaming Sunak too in the party.
There's certainly a distinct shortage of them here. @Leon receives endless amounts of ordure here for a single comment he made about the possibility of Truss 'surprising on the upside'. None of Sunak's breathless fanboys get the same treatment, even after he has achieved the worst election result in the modern era.
Good morning everybody, Victoria Atkins has just said on Laura K’s show that the country is instinctively Conservative!
Many people believe that but I think that's an effect of the right historically being split within one party rather than across several; that's changed now, for a while at least.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
The first that needs to be slapped around the head with an inflated puffer fish, as a reality check.
You stand fuck-all chance, Jenrick. Anybody synonymous with scandal condemns the Conservative Partyin 2029 to 2024 take 2. We need a clean skin.
Who are you curious about for leader?
Claire Courtinho fits the bill for whats needed, of those re-elected.
Although let's see who gets Rishi's seat when he does a runner over the summer. I'd still stick with Mordaunt - if she gets it.
Thanks. Interesting. Maybe a bit early for Courtnho I would have thought. Maybe a shadow chancellor???
Historically the winning strategy seems to be to find an obvious, PM in waiting rather than skipping a generation for the sake of it.
Is Mourdaunt your Blair, Cameron or Starmer figure? If she is, can she control the right and the Mail? That has been her Achilles heel.
We could have had Mordaunt. Almost certainly would, if the Mail hadn't been so determined to do the bidding of others in putting the boot in. The Mail has an enormous amount of responsibility for what went wrong at the top of Government in recent years. Not that they will ever take any of that responsibility.
Courtinho would have five years to show her mettle before going before the voters. I suspect she would play well with women, especially those we lost to the LibDems, whilst building the case for a Conservative Party aimed at growth, one that was no longer "fuck business".
Are you sure that she isn’t Sunak 2.0 or at best Milliband or Hague 97-01. Clever, but ultimately not ready yet b
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Spot on.
Look at Liz Truss's PMQs performances, and look at Sunak's. And tell me who comes across as childish, wanting to provoke, and lacking the seriousness you'd expect.
They were both rubbish. As was ‘promise everything’ deliver nothing Boris. There was nothing behind the rhetoric.
That doesn't answer my point. Liz Truss gave proper answers that spoke to her beliefs. Rishi Sunk did yah boo etc. That's why I wonder whether your allegation of Truss's lack of seriousness is based on what you hear from her, or just what you expect to hear.
She has an awkward way of speaking, facial expressions etc. But what she's saying is often quite serious, and in terms of her message about the fundamental ungovernability of institutions, very useful.
Liz Truss generally sounded to me like a French person speaking English, speaking in short phrases with the emphasis on the last syllable, then a pause, rinse and repeat.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
The first that needs to be slapped around the head with an inflated puffer fish, as a reality check.
You stand fuck-all chance, Jenrick. Anybody synonymous with scandal condemns the Conservative Partyin 2029 to 2024 take 2. We need a clean skin.
Who are you curious about for leader?
Claire Courtinho fits the bill for whats needed, of those re-elected.
Although let's see who gets Rishi's seat when he does a runner over the summer. I'd still stick with Mordaunt - if she gets it.
Courtinho and Badenoch are potentials but it is inevitable that such a leap for either would be uncertain. As an orange book liberal you need to appeal to the likes of me and so far I like both. Mordaunt possibly but I'm not convinced.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
It would have been better for your Party, Carlotta, if the Election had produced a more cleansing result. It would then have had less detritus like Jenrick to clear out before reconstruction begins.
I worry about the members, Peter.
They usually go for the most tub-thumping and dogmatic one. It really doesn't help.
I doubt they've learned many (any) lessons from this defeat.
I think there's an argument that this is the right way to go. They need to rebuild the base first and stop all the members defecting, and lose elections with a purist in charge until they get it out of their system.
One place Labour went wrong was putting a (relative) moderate up first, which pushed everything back by an entire parliament. If they'd picked Corbyn right away they could have got it out of their system in 2015 then got back into office in 2020.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
And what was Brexit but a fantasy project?
EU membership was 'a project'. A sovereign Britain is the status quo ante.
How far we going back for this blessed primordial State, Lucky - 1688, 1066, 55AD, pre-Saxon times?
We had opt-outs, valuable ones. There was a different path to travel which preserved real Sovereignity without embarking on a fantasy adventure into splendid isolation.
Robert Jenrick is the first leadership contender to break cover. He says the last government “insulted the public” by failing to deal with immigration. He sets out his stall here:
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
Hang on - Galloway is an Islamic sectarian. Is there evidence for this serious accusation for the successful independent Islamic bloc candidates?
If not I'll have to apologise for calling them the Gaza bros.
That may be quite a good term, except that it is perhaps important to distinguish humanitarian motivation from Islamist motivation. That can be quite an important dividing line in the Muslim community to build on; Islamists tend to get the attention, and they need to be marginalised imo in favour of more moderate tendencies. *
Consider the Naz Shah history, or how certain geographical areas or institutions based there become home to radicals - I'm thinking for example of Dewsbury, Tower Hamlets or Ken Livingstone's former bedmates.
* Compare for example the first and second institutions called the 'Muslim Parliament', around Khalim Siddiqui and Ghayasuddin Siddiqui respectively.
Second - actually possibly like the Liberal Democrats in 2029
Why would they not be aiming for first? The key for the non Labour parties is to spend the next five years being seen as the rightful home for those this new government will naturally let down. The Tories are unlikely to be functioning well enough to do it, so the Lib Dem’s and reform will see an opportunity.
There's a question over whether you can present yourself as an alternative government with fewer than a hundred MPs? - but the third party's position is certainly a lot more credible than was advancing Jo Swinson for PM.
If the next government isn't a Labour one, someone needs to win a lot of currently held Labour seats. The LibDems are remarkably badly placed to win any of them.
Next time, either the Tories recover and win Labour seats, or Reform breaks through in the batch where they are currently second to Labour, or Labour holds most of them and stays in power. There are probably just a very few where the Greens might come through, as observed on the previous thread (remember some PB'ers argued that a Green vote share of 6-7% was never going to happen; it just did).
Almost as a separate election, there will be a battle between the Tories and LibDems in the south - will the Tories reverse the LibDem surge, or will the LibDems supplant the Tories as part of the Home Counties? That will be a fascinating question, almost entirely a sideshow as far as the government that follows is concerned.
I've seen a remark in LD circles that 'we now have many MPs where we have councillor concentrations than previously."
So we need a look at remaining LD Councillor's with no MP.
Kingston upon Hull? Watford? Three Rivers? (South West Herftordshire)
Haven't checked pre-2024 results.
Hull is interesting as a Labour-facing LibDem council, largely because Labour is so very moribund.
But an under-commented hangover from the coalition is that, while the LibDems have bounced back in Tory-facing areas, the long tradition of urban liberalism has never recovered. In the past Liberals and LibDems have held seats in central London, central Manchester, in Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham, Sheffield with strong local government presences in almost all of these cities, in Oldham and Pendle and Bolton and Burnley; in London in Islington, Southwark, Haringey, Lambeth, Camden, Brent. Only fragments of this remain, and hence few Labour MPs face any realistic challenge from the centre.
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
One thing that should stick firmly in the minds of all Conservatives: they can still fall further from here.
There could easily form some sort of assumption that recovery must now be automatic, so low have they fallen, and now they're out of office, but that is not the case.
It could be that Starmer continues to be a lucky general, the economy improves whilst he's in office, and he delivers some things. Meanwhile the Tories shout and scream at each other (their default) - particularly on immigration - whilst Reform sweep up all the disillusionment and votes on that anyway and continue to grow and grow.
If all that happens the Tories could completely disappear at the next GE. That's why a serious leader is needed: focused on good organisation, unification, excellent candidate selection and competent professional opposition, and not a pissing contest artist.
I agree 100%.
But I hope there is a thinker/doer/communicator somewhere in the Party that can come up with an alternative vision for the future. That isn't mired in the internal Tory divisions of the past. As I say, growth, jobs, housing, energy (and NHS though tactically the Tories should shut up about that until they see what SKS does) - the rest will take care of itself.
Is there anyone particularly upset by the election? A lot of upsides across the political spectrum: Labour won a landslide Tories still breathing Best LibDem result in a century RefUK on the board Greens won 4 seats SNP routed
Any downsides?
You not winning
I have admiration that you stood and you must have found it quite an experience notwithstanding the abuse you encountered from those on social media
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
that's because you don't have lots of v rich individuals from overseas subsidising constant media ramping of greens and islamic sectarians
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
Not just Truss. The British right loved Beano Boris, and grumily tolerated May and Sunak, who at least tried to be responsible national leaders. Or see the Spectator; yes it sells by the truckload but that's in part because it's given up on being a serious journal of right wing thinking and is now almost entirely there to make people think "OMG what are they going to say now?" Which is an excellent sales strategy, but a terrible way to run a country.
Let us hope that Boring Old PM Starmer can Make Britain Boring Again.
May I join in the chorus.
Reform Uk is the Party of childish politics, of wishful thinking. Farage is an essentially unserious politician, in it for the laughs.
True to an extent but Farage did bring Brexit and should not be underestimated
A careful reading of their manifesto shows us that underestimating him his impossible. It was the worst policy platform of any party and would see the economy curl up and die. Surprised fewer people talked about it, but therein lies the truth. Farage is a wrecking ball, not a builder. You vote for him if you prefer a pile of rubble over what we have now.
"see the economy curl up and die" - I join you in being unconvinced by Reformonomics. But I am baffled that the Greens appear to get a free pass. Their economics appear to me to be more insane than anyone else's. My middle class school friends have engaged in a quick whatsapp discussion of the results, all earnestly pronouncing on how worrying it is that Reform have got 4 (now 5 of course) MPs, and have all had serious talks with their children about the dangers of snake oil salesmen. But they seem breezily unconcerned about Greens getting the same number and the Islamic sectarians getting another 4 (or 5, if you include Corbyn). Both of these strike me as far more extreme and worrying developments than Reform's handful. (Though granted Reform probably got more votes than the total of the rag tag and bobtails of the far left.)
Hang on - Galloway is an Islamic sectarian. Is there evidence for this serious accusation for the successful independent Islamic bloc candidates?
Well we might be quibbling over labels here - but I don't think it's a massive leap to think that the successful candidates were essentially elected on the issue of how Muslim voters feel about Gaza, rather than on any sort of policy platform for the UK. And I haven't delved into the background for each one, and apologies if I am misrepresenting them, but this story for example gives cause for pessimism: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mp-once-told-public-rally-let-s-make-israel-burn/ar-BB1pwzaS?ocid=BingNewsSerp
I don’t quite know how to make this point, but it’s a serious one. Liz Truss generally comes across to me as a bit childish, lacking the kind of seriousness or gravitas you would normally expect. It seems to be a disease that has infected some on the right. They seem to want to shock and provoke rather than effect change. It’s a subtle thing, but they’re a long way from the kind of intellectual heft that sat behind the Thatcherite revolution.
One thing that should stick firmly in the minds of all Conservatives: they can still fall further from here.
There could easily form some sort of assumption that recovery must now be automatic, so low have they fallen, and now they're out of office, but that is not the case.
It could be that Starmer continues to be a lucky general, the economy improves whilst he's in office, and he delivers some things. Meanwhile the Tories shout and scream at each other (their default) - particularly on immigration - whilst Reform sweep up all the disillusionment and votes on that anyway and continue to grow and grow.
If all that happens the Tories could completely disappear at the next GE. That's why a serious leader is needed: focused on good organisation, unification, excellent candidate selection and competent professional opposition, and not a pissing contest artist.
At least IDS is still around to explain that .
More seriously, there's much in what you say. There may be a divide between "keeping digging the same hole deeper - we just did not go far enough" and "let's be like Meerkats and have a look around at the landscape."
Comments
So we need a look at remaining LD Councillor's with no MP.
Kingston upon Hull?
Watford?
Three Rivers? (South West Herftordshire)
Haven't checked pre-2024 results.
That's why his declared plan to spend five years creating a "national movement" to take on the government in 2029 is most unlikely to come to anything. Thus we need to consider what will happen to his voters.
You stand fuck-all chance, Jenrick. Anybody synonymous with scandal condemns the Conservative Partyin 2029 to 2024 take 2. We need a clean skin.
You should be applauding their efforts, not condemning them. Goodness knows what a proper Brexit would look like, but you can guarantee it wouldn't be fun.
They usually go for the most tub-thumping and dogmatic one. It really doesn't help.
I doubt they've learned many (any) lessons from this defeat.
Oncologist Karol Sikora supported Reform's NHS policy against some fairly aggressive questioning from Kate Andrews on Spectator TV:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1RF8p6BCo
https://x.com/haggis_uk/status/1809866806284124199
Correct.
It's obvious want the Fukkers want in a leader. Late middle aged white man who can go into a pub and confidently order a 'Scottish Wine' while proffering a twenty, crisply folded along the long axis and held between the first and second fingers. Basically, somebody as close to Mike Baldwin as they can find.
Although let's see who gets Rishi's seat when he does a runner over the summer. I'd still stick with Mordaunt - if she gets it.
I honestly don't know where they go from here. It hasn't helped that of the 121 remaining MPs there are as many rogues and dinosaurs as people of good-will and common sense.
The evidence is that the ground campaign against Hunt made an impact - the Labour vote went down in Hunt's seat and they saved their deposit by just three votes (you were that close to a full recount!), and the LibDem vote rose whereas in Farnham the Labour vote went up and the LibDem vote didn't. The Green share also didn't perk up much in Godalming.
(this could also point to an errors in the way the notional result for the two parts of the old seat were calculated?)
Hunt kept Reform to under 9%, whereas in Farnham they got nearly 12%, and Hunt's own share dropped just 11% whereas in Farnham the Cons share was down 24%.
She has an awkward way of speaking, facial expressions etc. But what she's saying is often quite serious, and in terms of her message about the fundamental ungovernability of institutions, very useful.
Imagine if she somehow came back as leader and immediately promised to do that fucking tidal power thing you're always banging on about. Your prostate would spontaneously combust.
Indeed Leicester seems to be where the divide is. North of Leicester went Red in the East Midlands, stayed blue South and East of Leicester.
Victoria Atkins on LK
Re her comment on Labour vote being spread like margarine...can she tell talk from mutter?
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/10/wine-a-mission-in-the-outer-hebrides/
Victoria Atkins has just said on Laura K’s show that the country is instinctively Conservative!
Labour won a landslide
Tories still breathing
Best LibDem result in a century
RefUK on the board
Greens won 4 seats
SNP routed
Any downsides?
Wait...
Historically the winning strategy seems to be to find an obvious, PM in waiting rather than skipping a generation for the sake of it.
Is Mourdaunt your Blair, Cameron or Starmer figure? If she is, can she control the right and the Mail? That has been her Achilles heel.
Ignoring that a section of Tory voters will jump ship if they keep going further right .
The vertical axis appears to measure the deviation of constituency labour shares from the national average (though can't be sure in the absence of explanatory notes). However it does not represent the swing away from the Conservatives because there is no comparator from an earlier election. With the y-axis understood to be Lab shares in 2024, the constituency-level correlation between that and the percentage of mortgage payers suggests that mortage payers tended to vote Labour in 2024. But we do not know how that compares with the previous election. The tendency might be less than or greater than before.
In any event the lowess smoother is a distraction, the point is made just as easily with a straight line drawn through the point cloud, or even without one.
Arundel Cathedral - CONSERVATIVE
St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham - LABOUR?
Brentwood Cathedral - CONSERVATIVE ?
Cathedral of St Michael and St George, Aldershot - LABOUR
Clifton Cathedral
Lancaster Cathedral - LABOUR
Leeds Cathedral - LABOUR
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral - LABOUR
Middlesbrough Cathedral - LABOUR
St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne - LABOUR
Northampton Cathedral
St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich - LABOUR
Nottingham Cathedral - LABOUR
Old Sarum Cathedral
Plymouth Cathedral - LABOUR
Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, Portsmouth
Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles
Salford Cathedral - LABOUR
Cathedral Church of St Marie, Sheffield - LABOUR
Shrewsbury Cathedral - LABOUR
St George's Cathedral, Southwark - LABOUR
Westminster Cathedral - LABOUR
I'm a bit less reliable on these, as I am not sure exactly where they all are to within a stone's throw.
The Tories need a team with an entourage and think tanks to provide the ideas and some of the analysis. I am not seeing that in any part of the party at the moment. It may take a few years in opposition for some sort of alternative program for government to emerge but that is ok, all they have right now is time.
Johnson wanted the job just because, to sit in the big chair; Truss just wanted it for the Lolz; Sunak had the job fall into his lap and never seemed to have any agenda or aspirations of his own, beyond being decent and sensible, and he threw away being sensible so very quickly.
The Tories need to find someone with a driving mission to make the country better in some clear and understandable ways.
Courtinho would have five years to show her mettle before going before the voters. I suspect she would play well with women, especially those we lost to the LibDems, whilst building the case for a Conservative Party aimed at growth, one that was no longer "fuck business".
It may be that this is why people like David Cameron have urged a long, slow process to replace Rishi Sunak, in order to allow new talent to emerge (from where?). The question then is how urgently does Rishi want to leave the stage. Despite the widespread belief he has a Californian exit planned, Rishi has said more than once he will be here for the duration. Is his daughters' education a factor? Who knows?
I do think that the greatest threat to democracy is not the Reform party but the dismissal and ostracisation of the Reform party. They should be able to represent their voters on things like 'woke' , 'immigration', 'net zero' , 'low traffic zones' without being slandered or defamed because amongst all the misinformation on every point there is something of value which Labour should take in to account. The 'woke' stuff has gone way too far. Illegal immigration is a massive problem and the asylum system is a failure. Net Zero imposes costs on working people which are too casually shrugged off. If the governing party can take this in to account then it defuses the threat from the reform party. If it goes full on culture war against the 'far right' as many of its MP's/members/supporters would like then it just perpetuates the polarisation and appeal of the Reform party.
They did control Sheffield for a time iirc.
If you frame it like that, the challenge of who the Tories need to pick becomes harder. They need to find a Thatcher or Blair. Someone who make something happen from nowhere. A Bellingham.
I have no idea what you would call us being out of the EU and little prospect of rejoining other than Brexit
Small c
Labour celebrated election success — now they’re targeting Reform
The campaign chief Morgan McSweeney played an important role in securing the party’s triumph at the polls. Keir Starmer will look to him again for the way ahead
Morgan McSweeney is possibly the most influential figure in recent years.
If, for example, it turns out that talking to the French reduces the number of small boats then promising to leave the ECHR is not a viable electoral strategy.
The Tories also need to decontaminate the brand (again)
May called them the nasty party.
BoZo made them the greedy party.
Truss the fiscally incontinent.
Richi the incompetent.
Also of note is the current cabinet has the highest proportion of publicly educated ministers in a long time.
In 5 years, will another white, male public schoolboy be acceptable again?
24 hour news needs to invent it's own news agenda to remain relevant. So we can expect 60 months of wall to wall Farage and his stunts. Didn't he handle those handy hecklers brilliantly on Friday?
Only 350,000 appropriately applied votes and he would have been PM. Next time perhaps. He's "great copy" and the Conservative Party, the Fourth Estate and Mother Nature have made him what he is today.
https://x.com/RoarOfIreland/status/1809704374848958968
What are the odds on all 5 of their current MPs still being RefUK MPs in that time?
How many ways can a party of 5 split?
One place Labour went wrong was putting a (relative) moderate up first, which pushed everything back by an entire parliament. If they'd picked Corbyn right away they could have got it out of their system in 2015 then got back into office in 2020.
We had opt-outs, valuable ones. There was a different path to travel which preserved real Sovereignity without embarking on a fantasy adventure into splendid isolation.
Consider the Naz Shah history, or how certain geographical areas or institutions based there become home to radicals - I'm thinking for example of Dewsbury, Tower Hamlets or Ken Livingstone's former bedmates.
* Compare for example the first and second institutions called the 'Muslim Parliament', around Khalim Siddiqui and Ghayasuddin Siddiqui respectively.
But an under-commented hangover from the coalition is that, while the LibDems have bounced back in Tory-facing areas, the long tradition of urban liberalism has never recovered. In the past Liberals and LibDems have held seats in central London, central Manchester, in Leeds, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham, Sheffield with strong local government presences in almost all of these cities, in Oldham and Pendle and Bolton and Burnley; in London in Islington, Southwark, Haringey, Lambeth, Camden, Brent. Only fragments of this remain, and hence few Labour MPs face any realistic challenge from the centre.
But I hope there is a thinker/doer/communicator somewhere in the Party that can come up with an alternative vision for the future. That isn't mired in the internal Tory divisions of the past. As I say, growth, jobs, housing, energy (and NHS though tactically the Tories should shut up about that until they see what SKS does) - the rest will take care of itself.
I have admiration that you stood and you must have found it quite an experience notwithstanding the abuse you encountered from those on social media
Well done
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mp-once-told-public-rally-let-s-make-israel-burn/ar-BB1pwzaS?ocid=BingNewsSerp
More seriously, there's much in what you say. There may be a divide between "keeping digging the same hole deeper - we just did not go far enough" and "let's be like Meerkats and have a look around at the landscape."