Sir Keir Starmer continues to be Malleus Scotnatorum – politicalbetting.com
Sir Keir Starmer continues to be Malleus Scotnatorum – politicalbetting.com
After smashing the SNP in last year’s general election Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour won the Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse by-election quite unexpectedly and there’s quite a lot to unpack, in no particular order
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Unlike Reform.
Elon Musk has been replying to clips of Steve Bannon calling for his businesses to be seized by the US govt with “peak/communist retard” numerous times over the last 12 hours
I have no more popcorn left…
https://x.com/AllieRenison/status/1930886652244762709
25 candidates all polling circa 4%.
Ukrainian Air Force F-16s are now directly supporting ground assault operations.
Seen here, a Ukrainian F-16 drops a load of GBU-39 glide bombs on a Russian trench outside of Tetkino, Kursk Oblast, with troops from the 225th Assault Regiment following to capture the position.
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1930665565359649133
The main story is SNP doing badly, even if not badly enough to be out of government at the next Holyrood election.
We stand in awe of it.
..However, it's not just first and second place which merit some analysis.
Reform UK, who finished third with about 7,000 votes, weren't actually that far behind first place Labour.
This contest turned out to be a tight three-horse race.
The new-ish party was hoping for second. They've fallen slightly short of that, but will still be fairly happy with their performance...
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/taking-the-trump-musk-war-seriously
You have great faith in PBers' attention spans.
'I always thought you needed a little humiliation. Or was it humility? Either would do.'
headline: “Labour managed to retain their deposit in the Hamilton by-election in the face of a Reform surge”.
Not a bad job by Reform
Cambridge finished second/Oxford finished last.
https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1930753167500996869
Lab 34
SNP 30
Reform 20
Con 10
and that's with Reform predicted to get 362 seats.
I do recommend the best hotel room in the country. Sixth floor suite, Le Royal. Brilliant Japanese loo with warm seats. I know that’s not that exciting but…. a warm loo seat is an amazing thing
To tie this up with politics I would vote for the party that made Japanese toilets obligatory across the UK. In fact I might even START that party and that will be our ONLY policy and we’d WIN
Because Ofwat should have been doing so 25 years ago and if they had Thames Water wouldn’t be in this mess
I also had a brown suit that under disco lights looked orange, I learned this at a wedding with a Northern Irish groom.
If Musk gets deported as some want surely he can come back by claiming asylum.
Only vaguely interesting time I had in that hotel was turning up to check in as Condoleeza Roce and team were checking in so walked into the lobby with millions of security service goons in the way and being obnoxious.
Congrats to Labour!
Better luck next time to SNP and Reform!
LOL to Tories and LibDems!
I have a pair that colour - for dancing.
TBF at least they aren't blue trousers, or Rishi length Jermyn Street pedal-pushers.
The governing party winning a by-election is *always* a win for its leader.
The governing party winning a by-election they were expected to lose is a *good* win for its leader.
The governing party winning a by-election in a seat *they didn't previously hold* is a great day for its leader.
https://bsky.app/profile/jamesrball.com/post/3lqwc7ev3mc2r
Mega historical bust ups. A thread.
1. King John and Philip of France
The powerful foreigner cynically helped put the incompetent, odious sex offender on the throne only to launch an all out war against him.
John bankrupted his kingdom, fell out with everyone and shat himself to death
https://bsky.app/profile/thehistoryguy.bsky.social/post/3lqwboxzza22r
Surely not ?
Fascinating result in Scotland and a relief for Labour
Sky interviewed a polling expert who said that the winner was undoubtedly Reform, and with the electoral system in Scotland [ and Wales] next year's Holyrood elections will see a substantial number of Reform members
It must be remembered that if Reform can do this in Scotland, then Labour in Wales in 2026 may well lose their monopoly in power since devolution
FPT
How hard did SLab campaign and mobilise on this?
Did they learn the lesson of a loss by a squeak in Runcorn?
Among Republicans - "If you had to choose, who would you side with more between the two?"
Trump: 71%
Musk: 6%
Neither: 12%
YouGov / June 5, 2025
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1930810812018635253
The SLAB victory has upended that narrative, but I expect it may take the commentators some time to catch up.
1. 5 star hotels, free and on expenses are just fun. I love the living-in-a-womb feeling. You don’t have to leave the cocoon. The G&Ts are excellent. The pool is nice. The decor soothes
2. The other guests are quite interesting. A lot of rich old important people - Eurocrats and lobbyists I suspect. You hear more English than any other language
3. Decent breakfast. Which is the only good meal in the country. To eat well in Luxembourg you must have breakfast three times a day
Strangely, in the following months, they got back on schedule, finally. And even finished the telescope.
But it says something that the SNP lost 1/3 of it's vote which means they were either complacent, didn't grasp the scale of their problem or don't have the ground troops to get the vote out.
Massive swing to the right, of course.
Note the level of UKIP support in Hamilton (great racecourse by the way)
They are far closer to each other than is realised. Naturally they hate each other.
Just a little observation but whilst Greens should do a bit better, I think LDs and Con are probably looking at 2011 type 'nadir' results at next year's Holyrood election in seat terms. For SCon its back to Annie as if Ruth was never here (in fact I can see them winning the same 3 constituencies as a max - Berwickshire, Dumfriesshire and Ayr)
And a 22 year old leads adult social care
https://new.basw.co.uk/about-social-work/psw-magazine/articles/reform-councillors-aged-19-and-22-charge-childrens-and
Did all the other councilors take 2 steps back when the positions were offered because this doesn’t make sense
What is a real concern is their professed & documented beliefs.
Apparently.
Tesla drivers think they own the road top.
- it will be close between the SNP and Reform, with the SNP just edging it. Labour nowhere.
- as predicted, it was a tight three-way fight, and Labour were lucky to edge it.
- Reform were the real winners.
It seems plenty of Scottish
nationalists are attracted by Reform not just rightwing conservatives
Stay safe out there.
Are you remarking on how many votes they received, or how few?
In Hamilton New UKIP has received 0.1-0.2% of the vote, whilst Old UKIP peaked at around 2.5% in the mid-2010s.
Compared to eg my area (ie Dennis Skinner / Geoff Hoon country), Old UKIP peaked at 20%+ in 2015 (benefiting from Jason Zadrozny standing down for alleged-scandal reasons, and also the BNP collapsing), and those people imo now form a big chunk of Lee Anderson's base to which he panders. New UKIP do not exist locally in visible politics.
Utterly delusional.
Its a good result, third is not and has never been 'seismic'
Plaid might win most seats too in the Senedd but would have to do a deal with Labour still to govern
I'm going for Lazy Griff..partly for the name, partly because it came 2nd in the Chester Vase and partly because it's available at 100/1..Im sure it will go as well as pb.coms Hamilton predictions..😚
IMO they will need to go further as the new Model Y starts at about £41-42kk. They need the base model to be £39999 AND have the free finance.
My experience so far, MER and SSE, have been a total shit-show.
Slow / not charging and crashing out between taking initial deposit and final payment - so costing even more than the punchy £/kwhr.
Shame about Elon Musk.
* X/Y models. Cybertruck excluded obviously.
Which is why they won the charging standard war in the US - despite the competing standard being backed by every other car company and the government.
FPT:
The narrative developing here that the SNP are losing significant numbers of voters to Reform is just... I think this is a coping mechanism for PB Tories.
Looking at the Survation poll - a full Scottish poll but I'm quoting sub-samples from it - 4% of the SNP's GE '24 vote is going to Reform. Whichever way you cut, the SNP is simply not the main source the source of votes - it looks like nearly half of the SCon vote is going Reform, for example.
But the bigger story is that the core Reform base is highly energised (voter retention is 90%+) and they are invigorating lots of new voters. That's the same in Scotland as in England.
(I guess Scottish nationalist is different to SNP supporter. Someone singing Rule Britannia at Ibrox could be described as a nationalist from Scotland...).
"Princess Joan was sent off to marry Hugh de Lusignan but somehow after John’s death Hugh married the mother rather than the daughter when Isobel returned to Angouleme in 1217, perhaps not surprising given that Joan was still a child."
https://thehistoryjar.com/2015/09/14/king-johns-women/