Political earthquake … Seismic … Cataclysmic … Ground-breaking … End of Tory hopes … UKIP here to stay … Tsunami … Earth will stop turning … Fantasist Tories … winter is coming …
Just thought I'd air the bollocks first.
No, because the result is going to be pretty much as expected by everyone except you.
And Dave
The Prime Minister toured the regional receptions getting steadily more pumped up in his anger about Reckless’s duplicity. Rumour is rife the words ‘effing Reckless’, ‘fat arse’ and ‘dick head’ were blurted out in various versions of a tub-thumping turn by Cameron. The Tories are going to fight Rochester hard – that was very clear by the time the PM arrived at Conservative Home’s late night reception for the 1922 Committee. By then Dave was in full blown Mr Angry mode, telling activists and media types that Reckless would be punished.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Garbage. You have never had anything but utter disdain and contempt for UKIP. Trying to pretend now that you wanted any success for them is completely dishonest.
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
On the other hand Cameron could have been more careful about his choice of candidate for R & S. Tolhurst wasn't good enough to beat Reckless. It does beg questions about CCHQ's strategy to beat UKIP; trying to out do the anti anti party line didn't quite work - see last week's leaflet about the local candidate.
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
The Tory party is jam packed with self serving idiot MPs.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Garbage. You have never had anything but utter disdain and contempt for UKIP. Trying to pretend now that you wanted any success for them is completely dishonest.
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
And they'd be fine with that. The Tories have a lot of issues confronting them, but that so many don't want to fight UKIP (hell, for the longest time the leadership didn't either, sticking with insulting them or ignoring them until they had no choice), and as they are the biggest obstacle to a Tory win, they apparently don't want to win the GE either. Not with Cameron at the helm.
TimB I expect the Democrats are trying to lock-up the Hispanic vote for them as Lincoln did the black vote for Republicans until the Civil Rights' Act. However, at the moment, as the rise of UKIP and the mid term results in the US show, on both sides of the Atlantic the majority of the population want tighter immigration controls
England have played two football matches and one rugby match within the last week; hardly surprising that flags were out.
One of the flags is defaced by the West Ham coat of arms. Clearly must be from East London or Essex. I would have thought Charlton would be more appropriate, but it just goes to show how far the WWC has been displaced.
PS. Nice to see Labour getting the UKIP treatment over an essentially harmless tweet.
You seriously think the flags were put up for the football?
I've seen Man Utd flags in the Far East. Never realised it was a sign of displacement.
You don't get glory hunters supporting West Ham. That's another split between the working class and the Islington types. The former support either their Dad's club or, if he doesn't have one, the nearest one to their house. The prawn sandwich brigade choose whichever club is the trendy successful one when they got into football.
I do enjoy Socrates on the working class. All Man Utd fans outside Manchester are effete metropolitans. Ditto with non-scouser Liverpool supporters. Who'd have thunk it?
Lots of Chelsea supporters in my working-class area of Exeter - who do like to display the English flag for the football team of course.
I don't think they're all émigrés from the Russian invasion of that part of London, but who knows?
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
And they'd be fine with that. The Tories have a lot of issues confronting them, but that so many don't want to fight UKIP (hell, for the longest time the leadership didn't either, sticking with insulting them or ignoring them until they had no choice), and as they are the biggest obstacle to a Tory win, they apparently don't want to win the GE either. Not with Cameron at the helm.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Garbage. You have never had anything but utter disdain and contempt for UKIP. Trying to pretend now that you wanted any success for them is completely dishonest.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Try "Dissimulation".
Congratulations on pulling the romantic, though, and well done for airing his bollocks.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Garbage. You have never had anything but utter disdain and contempt for UKIP. Trying to pretend now that you wanted any success for them is completely dishonest.
Me too!
The reason Tyndall is misguided is that I've seen through UKIP from the outset. They're not the solution but the problem: for the most part they're tired angry old men whinging and whining from the margins.
I'd love to see a successful genuinely fresh new force in British politics. UKIP are the opposite.
ScottP Many socialists will have sympathy with John Lennon's words 'imagine there's no country, nothing to kill or die for', including Emily Thornberry it would seem, and of course Marxist thought is based on an international class struggle and anti-nationalist. However, as the SNP and UKIP have shown nationalism wins votes!
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
The Tory party is jam packed with self serving idiot MPs.
Sadly there's some truth in this.
And a couple of them jumped ship to UKIP when they saw the local polling.
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
The Tory party is jam packed with self serving idiot MPs.
Sadly there's some truth in this.
The idiot back bench tories are the likes of Reckless who prefer to pander to their own pointless prejudice and make life easy for Labour.
"Labour sources are even more emphatic. They are predicting that Ukip will get about 45% of the vote, the Tories 37/38/39% and that they will be squeezed down to about 10% or 11%."
The Tories are within reach of a win in the GE with Labour in crisis and yet some Tory MPs are supposedly talking about a leadership challenge because of a by-election result! Bonkers. The self indulgent clowns will deserve to lose if they challenge Cameron now.
The Tory party is jam packed with self serving idiot MPs.
Sadly there's some truth in this.
The idiot back bench tories are the likes of Reckless who prefer to pander to their own pointless prejudice and make life easy for Labour.
Will there at least be a little cheer for the Tories this evening by maintaining their small lead in the Sun/YouGov poll ..... which could make Stephen Fisher's updated GE Seats projection tomorrow mildly interesting.
@faisalislam: Oh my word: "Emily Thornberry has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet. "
Madness! Utter madness. This could have been contained but Ed panicked. Thornberry was one of Ed's most loyal allies, but the malcontents in Labour wanted to get at him through her. And they succeeded. The vultures are circling.
Exactly my point earlier. What a disaster for Labour. Talk about shooting yourself. I really have got to the point where i think it seems Labour will do anything collectively to avoid winning in May.
TimB I expect the Democrats are trying to lock-up the Hispanic vote for them as Lincoln did the black vote for Republicans until the Civil Rights' Act. However, at the moment, as the rise of UKIP and the mid term results in the US show, on both sides of the Atlantic the majority of the population want tighter immigration controls
Identity politics is what the Dems do - hence the nonsensical 'war on women' that was repudiated so completely a couple of weeks back.
And of course the immigration executive action to be announced in the next couple of hours.
What we seasoned observers realised from the Reckless nonsense last night then. Single figure UKIP win? Or is Farage now dampening in order to pump tomorrow?
Either way, Kle4 got it spot on last night: UKIP are no different from the rest. Flannel. Dissemination and Spin.
Sad really. The romantic in me liked the idea of a successful party that was different. They aren't.
Garbage. You have never had anything but utter disdain and contempt for UKIP. Trying to pretend now that you wanted any success for them is completely dishonest.
Me too!
The reason Tyndall is misguided is that I've seen through UKIP from the outset. They're not the solution but the problem: for the most part they're tired angry old men whinging and whining from the margins.
I'd love to see a successful genuinely fresh new force in British politics. UKIP are the opposite.
Again garbage. You are opposed to almost everything that UKIP has ever stood for including their main aim of leaving the EU and you have made that clear at every possible turn. Trying to claim that you 'saw through them' when actually you just opposed them from start to finish is utterly dishonest.
The very worst thing for you would be if UKIP are successful and achieve their aims.
This is incredible - Democrats are comparing tonight's Obama executive action announcement on immigration to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation proclamation
Should be impeached, acting like an African dictator.
What on earth is politics coming to when a Shadow Minister resigns over a photograph with a neutral comment under it? I can't stand Emily Thornberry but she deserves better on this. This General Election promises to be the most bizarre ever.
It's not quite as good as Rumsfeld's Unknown Unknowns, but it's definitely pretty good. He hasn't really had many good lines - few politicians do these days. In thirty years time, it'll either look incredibly foresightful (if Twitter takes over the world) or utterly inexplicable to the young folk without a retroglossary (the way of all things seems more likely). In contrast, the Unknown Unknowns have an eternal quality about them.
Thornberry going seems something of an overreaction, but either good to bury the chaos on a terrible night for the Tories, or else nice of them to distract from the terrible night for the Tories.
"Labour sources are even more emphatic. They are predicting that Ukip will get about 45% of the vote, the Tories 37/38/39% and that they will be squeezed down to about 10% or 11%."
45% + 38% + 11% = 94%, leaving just 6% for all the others ....... doesn't bode well for the Yellows does it?
What on earth is politics coming to when a Shadow Minister resigns over a photograph with a neutral comment under it? I can't stand Emily Thornberry but she deserves better on this. This General Election promises to be the most bizarre ever.
I'm 600 miles away and I could see it was one of the dumbest tweets by a politician since Twitter was invented.
@IanDunt: By sacking her (again, presumably) Miliband actually makes the Thornberry tweet more damaging. Vindicates most damaging interpretation.
@IsabelHardman: It was possible to interpret Thornberry’s tweet in a number of ways. By making her resign, Labour have plumped for worst interpretation.
During the last Labour government, their three Attorneys General was a bloke nearing his 70s and two people from the House of Lords, as they didn't have many people qualified to be Attorney General on their benches.
Starting to wonder if this might be a perfect storm for another leadership crisis for Ed... the Thornberry shambles (and what seems frankly like Ed gutlessly surrendering one of his "allies" to cover himself), a persistent Tory lead in the polls, and a collapse in the byelection.
They say she resigned, but I bet it was Ed who said she had to go.
Suspicion has to be Ed panicked.
True, although I'm rarely clear on when the right time to sack someone is when a media storm of some proportion erupts. I cannot forget that many of those who called for Mitchell to be immediately sacked later also criticized Cameron for giving in to the pressure to sack him after many of the police lies came to light (not that Mitchell does not appear to have been a stand up guy on many occasions). Tough to make the call on if it is too soon or too late.
Thornberry going seems something of an overreaction, but either good to bury the chaos on a terrible night for the Tories, or else nice of them to distract from the terrible night for the Tories.
They have distracted from Tories. No wonder Ed was reported to be angriest ever. It is incompetence beyond words.
What on earth is politics coming to when a Shadow Minister resigns over a photograph with a neutral comment under it? I can't stand Emily Thornberry but she deserves better on this. This General Election promises to be the most bizarre ever.
I'm 600 miles away and I could see it was one of the dumbest tweets by a politician since Twitter was invented.
Starting to wonder if this might be a perfect storm for another leadership crisis for Ed... the Thornberry shambles (and what seems frankly like Ed gutlessly surrendering one of his "allies" to cover himself), a persistent Tory lead in the polls, and a collapse in the byelection.
Anyone Tory MPs who defect to UKIP in the next few days are doing it purely to save Ed.
Comments
The Prime Minister toured the regional receptions getting steadily more pumped up in his anger about Reckless’s duplicity. Rumour is rife the words ‘effing Reckless’, ‘fat arse’ and ‘dick head’ were blurted out in various versions of a tub-thumping turn by Cameron. The Tories are going to fight Rochester hard – that was very clear by the time the PM arrived at Conservative Home’s late night reception for the 1922 Committee. By then Dave was in full blown Mr Angry mode, telling activists and media types that Reckless would be punished.
"I bet now that he has massively overstated Labour as usual."
My guess on those figures it's the Tories he's overstated
Well done Thornberry.
I'm going with UKIP, but by slightly less than expected. We'll see in the morning.
Night all.
Costing me about £50 that
I don't think they're all émigrés from the Russian invasion of that part of London, but who knows?
Glad you're around. Brilliant post last night.
Congratulations on pulling the romantic, though, and well done for airing his bollocks.
Conservative sources tell @SkyNews the party is not going to win Rochester and Strood tonight.
I'd love to see a successful genuinely fresh new force in British politics. UKIP are the opposite.
@faisalislam: Oh my word: "Emily Thornberry has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet. "
Oh my word: "Emily Thornberry has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet. "
BREAKING: EMILY THORNBERRY RESIGNS
I used to have a big Union Jack flag with Dronfield Owls written on it
Flags are rubbish these days especially on cars.
Cuts down your MPG too.
I also used to go to away matches with scarfs out of both back windows.
Was getting through about 10 scarves a season.
AWESOME!
Oh my word: "Emily Thornberry has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet. "
POEDWAS.
oh dear never mind
Confirmed again.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2014/nov/20/rochester-and-strood-byelection-results-live-coverage
Nothing to lose by trying it.
Sigh. Told you so.
There's big big trouble for Labour in London because of the Mansion Tax. Those who don't jump ship may be kicked out by the voters.
Those nasty Tories forcing Thornbury out eh Ben. Do you ever get tired of being wrong all the time?
@timothy_stanley: By resigning, Thornberry has actually drawn more attention to the story that Labour has totally lost touch with the working class.
Lucy Powell gets ANOTHER front page for her man. What a ******* star...
Bye Four Bellies
"Too many tweets make"... indeed.
And of course the immigration executive action to be announced in the next couple of hours.
The very worst thing for you would be if UKIP are successful and achieve their aims.
That's possibly lower than Clacton.
EDIT: First...
oh well never mind.
This General Election promises to be the most bizarre ever.
@rosschawkins: Nightmare Sun splash for Labour via @StigAbell http://t.co/WWo0mJ6wvV
For once it might be quite entertaining.
now, why did the Labour party say "so what" this afternoon???
Or a white van.
Perhaps you can introduce me to your Asian neighbours they sound a wonderful example of the great Multicultural Society we have become to me.
Good the power of Adidas methinks.
@IsabelHardman: It was possible to interpret Thornberry’s tweet in a number of ways. By making her resign, Labour have plumped for worst interpretation.
@SophyRidgeSky: On a night where UKIP could be about to turn over a Tory majority of just under 10,000 - Labour has still managed to make headlines...
This was inherently trivial but resonant: Labour's Plebgate.
twitter.com/suttonnick/status/535560457785196544/photo/1