By the way, BBC says that, following Tower Hamlets, Labour has a net gain of +77 seats, compared to the Lib Dems' +75 seats.
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
A fair point. I hadn't caught up with the shambles that is TH. But I still think that a Lib Dem revival is more threatening to a Tory majority than Labour recovering control in TH.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
I'm sure going to Finchley road to celebrate the barnet win would have been a good idea lol! Oh the iceberg of British politics. Everyone sees what's above the surface. As for what lurks beneath. .......
Mr. Barnesian, the electorate voted to leave the EU. The electorate voted for the party promising said referendum. That referendum was passed by the Commons. The Commons then passed a motion confirming the result of the referendum.
If the Commons passed a law ending elections, that wouldn't be acceptable just because they're MPs. I fear that they, and people such as yourself, dramatically underestimate the anger and resentment that will be provoked if, after decades of campaigning for a say, the electorate makes a decision (having been promised it would be carried out) and the political class decides to do otherwise.
Showing contempt for the electorate, and for democracy, is not a wise thing.
Still, some are more comfortable simply shouting "Racist" or "Little Englander" or "you are the vanguard of the far right party that you fear". It's easier to denounce than debate.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
I am not suggesting it was a brilliant night for Labour. I agree with David's analysis. But the landscape is changing in a way that is not necessarily to the Tory's advantage.
I'm quite certain there are anti-semitic Conservatives. I've met them. But, it's more based on snobbery, as opposed to holocaust denial, or ludicrous conspiracy theories.
I'd broadly agree with that Sean, added to which the professional and business green eyed monster also has traction.
I also recall having a most perplexing conversation with a Conservative peer who exuded all charm, wit and decency and then went off on one about Churchill being substantially complicit with the holocaust.
The theory being that Hitler and Churchill had agreed secretly that the British forces would be allowed to effectively withdraw from Dunkirk to fight another day, in return for the Nazis being given a free hand to deal with the "Jewish problem". Hitler determined that Churchill's American family were virulently anti-Semetic and a pragmatic Churchill would seize the chance and enter into a pact with the devil as Stalin had done in 1939.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
That's far to early to say. The conventional wisdom would be that an incumbent government would not have much to worry about, on the basis of these results, but the conventional wisdom was that last year's local elections were pointing to a Conservative landslide.
Mr. Meeks, on that note, it's probably more about morale and knocking the other side than anything else. If one side's quiet and the other noisy, it makes the noisy lot look/feel like they're winning.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
I’d have thought after last year that arguments implicitly based on swingback or stages in the electoral cycle would have been used with caution. It seems not.
By the way, BBC says that, following Tower Hamlets, Labour has a net gain of +77 seats, compared to the Lib Dems' +75 seats.
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
A fair point. I hadn't caught up with the shambles that is TH. But I still think that a Lib Dem revival is more threatening to a Tory majority than Labour recovering control in TH.
I'm still not really sure there's much evidence of a Lib Dem revival. As has been pointed out, their 16% is less than the 18% they got in the local elections just last year. Last year, the gap between the LibDems' performance in the locals and the general election was particularly extreme, but even so, they still typically do atleast 5% worse in general elections than they do in local elections at any one time.
Once you deduct that 5% bonus from the LibDem performance in every area, I'm not sure it points to many seat gains for them in a general election, except perhaps Richmond Park.
Everyone knows that the Conservatives’ current preferred xenophobia is anti-Muslim. Claiming virtue by not being as anti-Jewish as some Labour supporters is, in the circumstances, feeble.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
So do you think the Tories are on course for a majority?
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
I'm sure going to Finchley road to celebrate the barnet win would have been a good idea lol! Oh the iceberg of British politics. Everyone sees what's above the surface. As for what lurks beneath. .......
Well, it would have given us a good laugh on PB but I suspect it might have passed the majority by.
BTW how do you think we can have a sovereign debt crisis now that all major economies have invested in printing presses? How do they ever default?
By the way, BBC says that, following Tower Hamlets, Labour has a net gain of +77 seats, compared to the Lib Dems' +75 seats.
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
A fair point. I hadn't caught up with the shambles that is TH. But I still think that a Lib Dem revival is more threatening to a Tory majority than Labour recovering control in TH.
I'm still not really sure there's much evidence of a Lib Dem revival. As has been pointed out, their 16% is less than the 18% they got in the local elections just last year. Last year, the gap between the LibDems' performance in the locals and the general election was particularly extreme, but even so, they still typically do atleast 5% worse in general elections than they do in local elections at any one time.
Once you deduct that 5% bonus from the LibDem performance in every area, I'm not sure it points to many seat gains for them in a general election, except perhaps Richmond Park.
They're recovering in areas of traditional local government strength. That could well translate into Parliamentary gains in places like Cheltenham and South West London, but not in places like Watford or SW Hertfordshire or St. Alban's.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
I am not suggesting it was a brilliant night for Labour. I agree with David's analysis. But the landscape is changing in a way that is not necessarily to the Tory's advantage.
A majority can only really come about from a significant upsurge in protest voting against the other side, since both of the larger parties, despite being jointly at record levels of support, have lost the ability to build a winning coalition around any positive agenda. Brexit is alientating former Tories amongst the educated and within business; the interests of Labour's internal constituencies have diverged and cannot be reconciled.
Further, whilst Labour's position appears worse as it *ought* to be doing better, upsurges in protest voting are hugely more likely to be against a sitting government, when it does something (or things go) wrong, rather than oppositions. Whereas most people repelled by Corbyn are already voting Tory.
Q: Is one permitted to ride in an airplane on the Sabbath?
A: Yes, as long as your seat belt remains fastened. In this case, it is considered that you are not riding, you are wearing the plane.
My favourite Jewish joke is a great one for the human condition:
A mother and her beloved son are walking on a beach, when a great wave breaks and sweeps the youngster out to sea. He disappears out to the sea, and gets lost to sight.
The mother cries out to God, "Save my son, and return him, and I will devote the entirety of my life to good works in your service. I shall observe the Sabbath strictly, and instruct him as one of the righteous. Please, save my son!"
Shortly afterwards another great wave breaks, and suddenly the boy is thrown ashore at her feet, soggy, but unharmed.
The mother stands in stunned silence for a few seconds, then raises her hand to Heaven. She shouts angrily "He had a hat, you know...!
Harrods had a series of 'Jewish humour' Christmas cards they were forced to withdraw.
Mary & Joseph with donkey en route to Bethlehem.
'Its Christmas, I'm pregnant, we're late and YOU haven't booked a room. TERRIFIC!'
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
So do you think the Tories are on course for a majority?
Too soon to say. But Labour hardly look as though they are.
Q: Is one permitted to ride in an airplane on the Sabbath?
A: Yes, as long as your seat belt remains fastened. In this case, it is considered that you are not riding, you are wearing the plane.
My favourite Jewish joke is a great one for the human condition:
A mother and her beloved son are walking on a beach, when a great wave breaks and sweeps the youngster out to sea. He disappears out to the sea, and gets lost to sight.
The mother cries out to God, "Save my son, and return him, and I will devote the entirety of my life to good works in your service. I shall observe the Sabbath strictly, and instruct him as one of the righteous. Please, save my son!"
Shortly afterwards another great wave breaks, and suddenly the boy is thrown ashore at her feet, soggy, but unharmed.
The mother stands in stunned silence for a few seconds, then raises her hand to Heaven. She shouts angrily "He had a hat, you know...!
Harrods had a series of 'Jewish humour' Christmas cards they were forced to withdraw.
Mary & Joseph with donkey en route to Bethlehem.
'Its Christmas, I'm pregnant, we're late and YOU haven't booked a room. TERRIFIC!'
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
TBH I don't think I have ever used a FOBT. But I certainly agree that £2 is plenty, at least as an interim measure. And if that doesn't work they should be banned.
Q: Is one permitted to ride in an airplane on the Sabbath?
A: Yes, as long as your seat belt remains fastened. In this case, it is considered that you are not riding, you are wearing the plane.
My favourite Jewish joke is a great one for the human condition:
A mother and her beloved son are walking on a beach, when a great wave breaks and sweeps the youngster out to sea. He disappears out to the sea, and gets lost to sight.
The mother cries out to God, "Save my son, and return him, and I will devote the entirety of my life to good works in your service. I shall observe the Sabbath strictly, and instruct him as one of the righteous. Please, save my son!"
Shortly afterwards another great wave breaks, and suddenly the boy is thrown ashore at her feet, soggy, but unharmed.
The mother stands in stunned silence for a few seconds, then raises her hand to Heaven. She shouts angrily "He had a hat, you know...!
Harrods had a series of 'Jewish humour' Christmas cards they were forced to withdraw.
Mary & Joseph with donkey en route to Bethlehem.
'Its Christmas, I'm pregnant, we're late and YOU haven't booked a room. TERRIFIC!'
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher: ship
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
So do you think the Tories are on course for a majority?
Ignore the locals, the question is, from the last GE, from where are Conservatives going to get the extra votes they need to do so? Their success since 2010 has come from former LibDems (most gone to Labour, but in the south that hands seats to the Tories), and more latterly from the disappearance of UKIP. Going forward the best (only?) possibility appears to be Labour-voting supporters of Brexit. But will Brexit reality ever be as good as Brexit imagined?
Mr. Barnesian, the electorate voted to leave the EU. The electorate voted for the party promising said referendum. That referendum was passed by the Commons. The Commons then passed a motion confirming the result of the referendum.
If the Commons passed a law ending elections, that wouldn't be acceptable just because they're MPs. I fear that they, and people such as yourself, dramatically underestimate the anger and resentment that will be provoked if, after decades of campaigning for a say, the electorate makes a decision (having been promised it would be carried out) and the political class decides to do otherwise.
Showing contempt for the electorate, and for democracy, is not a wise thing.
Still, some are more comfortable simply shouting "Racist" or "Little Englander" or "you are the vanguard of the far right party that you fear". It's easier to denounce than debate.
I don't know how many of the electorate you meet to discuss politics and how representative they are.
In my experience, knocking on thousands of doors in numerous constituencies over decades, most of the electorate are only concerned about practical issues that directly affect them. Yes - dustbins and potholes, but also housing for them or their kids, their local school or hospital etc. Very few people are fired up by abstract concepts such as sovereignty or customs unions or FTAs.
The people who cry betrayal of the electorate are themselves a political elite, or at least a political clique.
One practical issue for Labour is better organisation of the huge number of helpers. The complaint used to be that all the new members were just clicktivists. That clearly isn't so. But as others have observed, having a mass of supporters rushing round without being organised into efficient teams of 5-10 people is of limited benefit (though UKIP used it to some effect). It's particularly difficult in London where there is so much multi-occupation - I once canvassed with a group of a dozen people crouched around an entryphone, and once is enough for this life.
More generally, though, I think Brexit is going to be decisive. If it is perceived to have worked out well, the Tories will be fine, and probably May too - why not reward the architect of the triumph? If it isn't, they're probably stuffed one way or another - Labour uptick, Tory abstentions, LibDem surge, defections, whatever.
Absolutely not. Labour had the largest net increase in number of councillors. A net increase of 77 isn't that bad considering very good 2014 results.
What is interesting is that the "old" anti-Tory coalition is beginning to emerge. Liberals taking on the Tories is some parts and Labour in other parts.
We must not forget Labour did not win Wandsworth or Westminster even in 1994. Barnet would have been won but for recent events.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Plenty to chew over and digest from the repast that was the local elections 2018.
As a LD, delighted to see progress made and seats gained. We are by no means back where we were but it's a big step in the right direction and thanks less to anything Vince Cable has said and done but down to the sheer hard graft from activists on the ground.
Within the advance, though, there's plenty for the LDs to consider. Of the 151 Councillors in London, 111 are in just three authorities (Kingston, Richmond and Sutton) with only 40 on the other twenty-nine Councils and far too many with no LD representation at all.
Yes, the victories in Kingston and Richmond were significant and overwhelming but no less creditable was holding Sutton in the face of a sustained Conservative onslaught. 12 seats were lost, however, and the Council has had a warning shot across its bows.
Small islands of strength are surrounded by vast oceans of weakness - up to a point, that's always been true of the LDs and true to some extent of the other parties as well - but these results continue to confirm the notion for the Party. There are very sporadic areas of growing strength where none existed before and larger areas of previous strength reduced to nothing.
As is often the case with local election results, there are good things and bad things to be taken. The 2018 round wasn't a complete success for the Conservatives - they lost over 100 Councillors in London, control of Trafford, the vaunted northern flagship, and there were some worrying results in the south (Tandridge being a very good example).
Nor were they a complete disaster for Labour - the Party gained Councillors in London, won Plymouth, won back Tower Hamlets and scored some good results elsewhere.
I find it complex and intriguing - not entirely as a result of 23/6/16, the political geography is shifting and changing. Both Labour and the Conservatives are making progress in areas which for generations had been areas of weakness for them and losing ground in areas of previous and traditional strength.
It may be (it may not of course) that the 2019 local election round will see the Conservatives enjoy a post-EU departure afterglow. They'll need to as they will be defending seats won on the night of Cameron's GE victory. With upwards of 5,000 seats to defend (and 200 UKIP seats as well) Labour, the LDs and others may think there are seats to be won.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher: ship
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair ands.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
So do you think the Tories are on course for a majority?
Ignore the locals, the question is, from the last GE, from where are Conservatives going to get the extra votes they need to do so? Their success since 2010 has come from former LibDems (most gone to Labour, but in the south that hands seats to the Tories), and more latterly from the disappearance of UKIP. Going forward the best (only?) possibility appears to be Labour-voting supporters of Brexit. But will Brexit reality ever be as good as Brexit imagined?
There were some strange losses and misses in 2017. It's easy enough with hindsight, to see why Kensington, Battersea, Canterbury, Southgate were lost. Harder to see why Lincoln, Bedford, Crewe, Stockton South or Peterborough went. The Conservatives have to focus on regaining the latter, and sealing the deal in places like Penistone & Stocksridge, Bishop Auckland, Dudley North.
At the 1995 local elections Labour's actual vote share was 47% and their projected national share was also 47%. Not sure why Owen Jones thinks that this year's 35% or 36% is better than that.
Plenty to chew over and digest from the repast that was the local elections 2018.
As a LD, delighted to see progress made and seats gained. We are by no means back where we were but it's a big step in the right direction and thanks less to anything Vince Cable has said and done but down to the sheer hard graft from activists on the ground.
Within the advance, though, there's plenty for the LDs to consider. Of the 151 Councillors in London, 111 are in just three authorities (Kingston, Richmond and Sutton) with only 40 on the other twenty-nine Councils and far too many with no LD representation at all.
Yes, the victories in Kingston and Richmond were significant and overwhelming but no less creditable was holding Sutton in the face of a sustained Conservative onslaught. 12 seats were lost, however, and the Council has had a warning shot across its bows.
Small islands of strength are surrounded by vast oceans of weakness - up to a point, that's always been true of the LDs and true to some extent of the other parties as well - but these results continue to confirm the notion for the Party. There are very sporadic areas of growing strength where none existed before and larger areas of previous strength reduced to nothing.
As is often the case with local election results, there are good things and bad things to be taken. The 2018 round wasn't a complete success for the Conservatives - they lost over 100 Councillors in London, control of Trafford, the vaunted northern flagship, and there were some worrying results in the south (Tandridge being a very good example).
Nor were they a complete disaster for Labour - the Party gained Councillors in London, won Plymouth, won back Tower Hamlets and scored some good results elsewhere.
I find it complex and intriguing - not entirely as a result of 23/6/16, the political geography is shifting and changing. Both Labour and the Conservatives are making progress in areas which for generations had been areas of weakness for them and losing ground in areas of previous and traditional strength.
It may be (it may not of course) that the 2019 local election round will see the Conservatives enjoy a post-EU departure afterglow. They'll need to as they will be defending seats won on the night of Cameron's GE victory. With upwards of 5,000 seats to defend (and 200 UKIP seats as well) Labour, the LDs and others may think there are seats to be won.
Assuming the transition deal (with something essentially equivalent to SM/CU membership) is agreed, I expect an anti-Con backlash in 2019 as the Sun and Mail will be screaming about how we haven’t really left. Of course, if there has been no deal all bets are off.
Lets nail this 'the LibDems are big winners and are back' rubbish.
The LibDems gained 74 councillors but in 2014 they lost 310 councillors ** - that's a 24% recovery rate.
At the equivalent third year in opposition stage Hague's Conservatives recovered 42% of the councillors they had lost four years previously.
Likewise EdM's Labour in 2013 recovered 100% of the councillors they had lost four years previously - the high score helped by having the two other main parties both in government.
I'm sure we all remember that the subsequent general election performances of Hague and EdM was not impressive.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The play.
The seats and Councils.
This is because majority very difficult.
May really t be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
I am not suggesting it was a brilliant night for Labour. I agree with David's analysis. But the landscape is changing in a way that is not necessarily to the Tory's advantage.
A majority can only really come about from a significant upsurge in protest voting against the other side, since both of the larger parties, despite being jointly at record levels of support, have lost the ability to build a winning coalition around any positive agenda. Brexit is alientating former Tories amongst the educated and within business; the interests of Labour's internal constituencies have diverged and cannot be reconciled.
Further, whilst Labour's position appears worse as it *ought* to be doing better, upsurges in protest voting are hugely more likely to be against a sitting government, when it does something (or things go) wrong, rather than oppositions. Whereas most people repelled by Corbyn are already voting Tory.
That is fair. Labour is getting the votes it is with Corbyn as leader. Given everything that has (deservedly) been thrown at him and the party leadership, it's hard to see where the extra is going to come from to drive Labour support down to the extent that it will hand the Tories a majority. Looking at the possible candidates to take over from May, I don't see any of them capable of breaking the Labour voting alliance. Some - Johnson, Rees Mogg, Gove, Hunt - are likely to reinforce it.
However, what that leaves us with is statsis. It is also becoming absolutely clear that with Corbyn and the far left in control, Labour is not going to overtake the Tories in seat numbers, let alone win a majority. As things stand, it looks like the next general election will produce a result that will be pretty similar to the last one. What changes that? The first party to find a leader who does not automatically repel 40% of voters will probably reap the reward. The challenge for both parties is to find one.
For the LibDems, there is clearly a very localised EU-based vote in SW London, quite possibly driven by a lot of the educated EU citizens who live there actually turning out in a local election. Richmond/Kingston/Merton account for 50 of the LibDem gains. And South Cambs, where something similar appears to have happened, accounts for another 20. There's your LibDem 'national recovery' right there. For everyone else in the country the story is simply that the LibDems have stopped losing. The same story as last year.
For Labour, the results should be worrying. Despite the government doing so badly, people aren't voting 'against' the government in local elections, so much as taking positions on the ongoing saga of Brexit. Labour is stuck on the Brexit fence and will lose support as soon as either of its feet approaches the grass on either side. Unless they can stay on the fence until Brexit goes pear shaped and restores the anti-government protest vote.
On antisemitism the issue is not so much individual racist party members, but that the party has sought to adopt the Muslim vote as a client group, and in so doing has bought into what it perceives as its agenda and interests, to the point that the distinction between the actions of Israel and of Jews is lost.
Totally agree on the last paragraph - Labour is becoming increasingly the party of factions and lord help you if you are in the wrong group. I wonder if Owen Jones understands the real hard left view on homosexuality - let alone that of some Muslim fundamentalists.
At a guess Corbyn fits into your hard left group?
Given he was fighting for gay rights before most I'm pretty sure he'd be quite happy with them. If you want someone to demonise Muslims using the cover of gay rights you are probably after a Le Pen type.
Or that new UKIP split off party if you want something domestic.
I'm not sure either would really be Owen's cup of tea...
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Agreed. May is not going to change that dynamic; I doubt she’s even capable of doing so. Is any prospective successor this side of the next election ? One might ask a similar question about Great Uncle Vince (Corbyn, unlike the other two, is very likely indeed to fight the next election).
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
To cite Stephen Fisher. Oppositions that go on to form governments are typically in double digit leads in the locals at this point in the electoral cycle.
Since we now have general elections every two years. the expression "mid term" has lost validity. There is a pretty good chance that there will be a general election in 2019, if not in October 2018.
I think the Lib Dems getting 16% in 2018 as opposed to 18% last year is relevant. They were different councils. Apart from SW London, they had very few friendly areas to work on.
You can only compare their performance against current national polling - and they did well.
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
What were the shares of the votes in London?
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
I guess multi-candidate wards complicate the equation, though you could just take the votes for the best performing candidate for each party
I'll try and crunch the numbers.
Some individual borough scores are Harrow 47% Lab to 45% Con, Barnet 44% Con to 39% Lab, Enfield 55% Lab to 34% Con, Croydon 44% Lab to 40% Con, Westminster 43% Con to 41% Lab, Richmond 47% Lib Dem to 38% Con.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Everyone knows that the Conservatives’ current preferred xenophobia is anti-Muslim. Claiming virtue by not being as anti-Jewish as some Labour supporters is, in the circumstances, feeble.
The Tories reinstating councillors post-vote who were suspended for racism pre-vote in order to secure majorities is the clearest indication of just how serious they are about the issue. Both parties have major issues. My concern is Labour and it will be interesting to see what happens from here. There are no more excuses.
By the way, BBC says that, following Tower Hamlets, Labour has a net gain of +77 seats, compared to the Lib Dems' +75 seats.
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
Yes because 75 seats is a lot for a small party.
Why are pb looking at seats won? London accounts for 40% of the seats fought over so that is the wrong comparison. Labour gained 20 council seats in Tower Hamlets? So what? They were 58 votes away from losing overall control of Bolton....that is a MUCH bigger story but because London dominates the seat numbers we ignore the bigger picture which is Labour don't quite badly (relatively speaking to their normal performances) in provincial England.
So what is the proper figure/ comparison we should be using? I'm not sure.....but NEV is quite good if flawed since these areas are mainly concentrated in areas where there aren't *that* many Labour/Tory parliamentary fights. I know NEV tries to iron this out however.
The NEV share for Lib dems is 16% on this figure they are clearly up from local elections during the coalition government so are the biggest gainers. i wouldn't call them the clear winners however.
For the LibDems, there is clearly a very localised EU-based vote in SW London, quite possibly driven by a lot of the educated EU citizens who live there actually turning out in a local election. Richmond/Kingston/Merton account for 50 of the LibDem gains. And South Cambs, where something similar appears to have happened, accounts for another 20. There's your LibDem 'national recovery' right there. For everyone else in the country the story is simply that the LibDems have stopped losing. The same story as last year.
For Labour, the results should be worrying. Despite the government doing so badly, people aren't voting 'against' the government in local elections, so much as taking positions on the ongoing saga of Brexit. Labour is stuck on the Brexit fence and will lose support as soon as either of its feet approaches the grass on either side. Unless they can stay on the fence until Brexit goes pear shaped and restores the anti-government protest vote.
On antisemitism the issue is not so much individual racist party members, but that the party has sought to adopt the Muslim vote as a client group, and in so doing has bought into what it perceives as its agenda and interests, to the point that the distinction between the actions of Israel and of Jews is lost.
Totally agree on the last paragraph - Labour is becoming increasingly the party of factions and lord help you if you are in the wrong group. I wonder if Owen Jones understands the real hard left view on homosexuality - let alone that of some Muslim fundamentalists.
At a guess Corbyn fits into your hard left group?
Given he was fighting for gay rights before most I'm pretty sure he'd be quite happy with them. If you want someone to demonise Muslims using the cover of gay rights you are probably after a Le Pen type.
Or that new UKIP split off party if you want something domestic.
I'm not sure either would really be Owen's cup of tea...
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
You know someone can be USA friendly and oppose hanging and support gun-control. Why do you always want to put people in "boxes". Humans are humans. No two person is the same.
I am not suggesting it was a brilliant night for Labour. I agree with David's analysis. But the landscape is changing in a way that is not necessarily to the Tory's advantage.
A majority can only really come about from a significant upsurge in protest voting against the other side, since both of the larger parties, despite being jointly at record levels of support, have lost the ability to build a winning coalition around any positive agenda. Brexit is alientating former Tories amongst the educated and within business; the interests of Labour's internal constituencies have diverged and cannot be reconciled.
Further, whilst Labour's position appears worse as it *ought* to be doing better, upsurges in protest voting are hugely more likely to be against a sitting government, when it does something (or things go) wrong, rather than oppositions. Whereas most people repelled by Corbyn are already voting Tory.
That is fair. Labour is getting the votes it is with Corbyn as leader. Given everything that has (deservedly) been thrown at him and the party leadership, it's hard to see where the extra is going to come from to drive Labour support down to the extent that it will hand the Tories a majority. Looking at the possible candidates to take over from May, I don't see any of them capable of breaking the Labour voting alliance. Some - Johnson, Rees Mogg, Gove, Hunt - are likely to reinforce it.
However, what that leaves us with is statsis. It is also becoming absolutely clear that with Corbyn and the far left in control, Labour is not going to overtake the Tories in seat numbers, let alone win a majority. As things stand, it looks like the next general election will produce a result that will be pretty similar to the last one. What changes that? The first party to find a leader who does not automatically repel 40% of voters will probably reap the reward. The challenge for both parties is to find one.
Corbyn's got a lock on the young, the poor, the public sector, renters, Muslims and champagne socialists.
That adds up to a lot of people but they tend to be concentrated in the same areas.
And the identity politics Corbyn deals in works as a project fear for all those not in one of Corbyn's voting blocks.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
Even at £2 stakes in casino games, it will still be possible to lose hundreds of pounds an hour.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Watford is like Three Rivers and St. Alban's. Lots of people who vote Lib Dem locally vote for the Conservatives and Labour nationally.
Does anyone know what’s been happening in Bolton council? Labour have lost a couple of by-elections and got hammered yesterday in somewhere that’s a traditional heartland Northern town for them.
At the 1995 local elections Labour's actual vote share was 47% and their projected national share was also 47%. Not sure why Owen Jones thinks that this year's 35% or 36% is better than that.
Absolutely not. Labour had the largest net increase in number of councillors. A net increase of 77 isn't that bad considering very good 2014 results.
What is interesting is that the "old" anti-Tory coalition is beginning to emerge. Liberals taking on the Tories is some parts and Labour in other parts.
We must not forget Labour did not win Wandsworth or Westminster even in 1994. Barnet would have been won but for recent events.
Yes, I think that is true. There are few Lab/LD marginals, and real potential for some tacit anti-Tory alliances.
It it also seems from the NEV* share that there is potential for more people to vote LD where there are winnable seats, the key is to identify and target these. It will be a long slow road back.
*Though 14% of a 30% turnout may well be exactly the same as 7% of a 60% turnout. GOTV muddies the waters if LD voters are keener to vote.
Everyone knows that the Conservatives’ current preferred xenophobia is anti-Muslim. Claiming virtue by not being as anti-Jewish as some Labour supporters is, in the circumstances, feeble.
I think the concern about anti-Jewish feeling in Labour is more about it being within the leadership of the party and/or its failure to deal with it effectively.
But your statement is a very broad brush one: “everyone knows”? The evidence for the Tories being anti-Muslim? Any particular proposals etc? (I’m well aware of your concern about the Turkey and Farage poster during the referendum.)
I would ask for your evidence but as I’m about to go off to the garden centre - it being a glorious day for being outside not hunched over a screen, I will wish you all a pleasant day.
I am not suggesting it was a brilliant night for Labour. I agree with David's analysis. But the landscape is changing in a way that is not necessarily to the Tory's advantage.
A majority can only really come about from a significant upsurge in protest voting against the other side, since both of the larger parties, despite being jointly at record levels of support, have lost the ability to build a winning coalition around any positive agenda. Brexit is alientating former Tories amongst the educated and within business; the interests of Labour's internal constituencies have diverged and cannot be reconciled.
Further, whilst Labour's position appears worse as it *ought* to be doing better, upsurges in protest voting are hugely more likely to be against a sitting government, when it does something (or things go) wrong, rather than oppositions. Whereas most people repelled by Corbyn are already voting Tory.
That is fair. Labour is getting the votes it is with Corbyn as leader. Given everything that has (deservedly) been thrown at him and the party leadership, it's hard to see where the extra is going to come from to drive Labour support down to the extent that it will hand the Tories a majority. Looking at the possible candidates to take over from May, I don't see any of them capable of breaking the Labour voting alliance. Some - Johnson, Rees Mogg, Gove, Hunt - are likely to reinforce it.
However, what that leaves us with is statsis. It is also becoming absolutely clear that with Corbyn and the far left in control, Labour is not going to overtake the Tories in seat numbers, let alone win a majority. As things stand, it looks like the next general election will produce a result that will be pretty similar to the last one. What changes that? The first party to find a leader who does not automatically repel 40% of voters will probably reap the reward. The challenge for both parties is to find one.
Corbyn's got a lock on the young, the poor, the public sector, renters, Muslims and champagne socialists.
That adds up to a lot of people but they tend to be concentrated in the same areas.
And the identity politics Corbyn deals in works as a project fear for all those not in one of Corbyn's voting blocks.
Sure - but the insinuation that the Tories do not do identity politics is a bit far fetched. Both sides do. That's how we have become so polarised. To win, one of the big parties is going to have to break free of the comfort blanket such an approach brings.
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
Yes. Tories got smashed. Barnet being your only achievement. UKIP did not even have too many to lose. London was always bigot free.
The Tories did not get "smashed" and London is not the country.
It was in reply to your post on London figures. You are correct London is not the country. I was talking about London as you were.
Labour targetted about 5 Tory councils in London and didn't win any of them. Maybe they should have concentrated on just one, like Wandsworth for instance.
Does anyone know what’s been happening in Bolton council? Labour have lost a couple of by-elections and got hammered yesterday in somewhere that’s a traditional heartland Northern town for them.
Confession time: I've absolutely no idea who Owen Jones is, except that his Twitter feed is mentioned here a lot. Perhaps I'd have made money on the locals if I'd cared enough to google him.
I like big votes and I cannot lie. But I wonder if both parties are actually better off from not having a clear win last night. It will encourage both of them to think hard.
Everyone knows that the Conservatives’ current preferred xenophobia is anti-Muslim. Claiming virtue by not being as anti-Jewish as some Labour supporters is, in the circumstances, feeble.
I think the concern about anti-Jewish feeling in Labour is more about it being within the leadership of the party and/or its failure to deal with it effectively.
But your statement is a very broad brush one: “everyone knows”? The evidence for the Tories being anti-Muslim? Any particular proposals etc? (I’m well aware of your concern about the Turkey and Farage poster during the referendum.)
I would ask for your evidence but as I’m about to go off to the garden centre - it being a glorious day for being outside not hunched over a screen, I will wish you all a pleasant day.
Yes, a glorious day here for gardening too. Gonna be hot later at the footy too.
I dont think Leicester will win another point this season, so bet the house on West Ham today, and Arsenal on Wednesday. Our midfield is injured and our defence abject, and the players clearly want Puel gone. The owners gave him a vote of confidence this week, which surely means defenestration is imminent.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Do you think this looks like an imminent LibDem gain ?
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
I like big votes and I cannot lie. But I wonder if both parties are actually better off from not having a clear win last night. It will encourage both of them to think hard.
It should do, but it appears to be encouraging them to be still more complacent.
Within the advance, though, there's plenty for the LDs to consider. Of the 151 Councillors in London, 111 are in just three authorities (Kingston, Richmond and Sutton) with only 40 on the other twenty-nine Councils and far too many with no LD representation at all.
Yes, the victories in Kingston and Richmond were significant and overwhelming but no less creditable was holding Sutton in the face of a sustained Conservative onslaught. 12 seats were lost, however, and the Council has had a warning shot across its bows.
Small islands of strength are surrounded by vast oceans of weakness - up to a point, that's always been true of the LDs and true to some extent of the other parties as well - but these results continue to confirm the notion for the Party. There are very sporadic areas of growing strength where none existed before and larger areas of previous strength reduced to nothing.
As is often the case with local election results, there are good things and bad things to be taken. The 2018 round wasn't a complete success for the Conservatives - they lost over 100 Councillors in London, control of Trafford, the vaunted northern flagship, and there were some worrying results in the south (Tandridge being a very good example).
Nor were they a complete disaster for Labour - the Party gained Councillors in London, won Plymouth, won back Tower Hamlets and scored some good results elsewhere.
I find it complex and intriguing - not entirely as a result of 23/6/16, the political geography is shifting and changing. Both Labour and the Conservatives are making progress in areas which for generations had been areas of weakness for them and losing ground in areas of previous and traditional strength.
It may be (it may not of course) that the 2019 local election round will see the Conservatives enjoy a post-EU departure afterglow. They'll need to as they will be defending seats won on the night of Cameron's GE victory. With upwards of 5,000 seats to defend (and 200 UKIP seats as well) Labour, the LDs and others may think there are seats to be won.
I think you are being unkind to your own party. Not surprising as you are perhaps the only activist Lib Dem Brexiter.
Regardless, even by accident [ though I don't think so ], the Lib Dem vote was more efficiently distributed. There is no point with spreading the 16% butter on the toast evenly. Better to concentrate more in certain areas where you have a chance of winning. In that sense, the Lib Dem did very well. Also the anti-Tory coalition is back [ cough, cough: some Labour supporters helped your cause ]. Your next port of call should be those areas just south-west of London. The demography is not that different. Bermondsey is lost and don't dream about Vauxhall.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
Confession time: I've absolutely no idea who Owen Jones is, except that his Twitter feed is mentioned here a lot. Perhaps I'd have made money on the locals if I'd cared enough to google him.
This is his best interview, but he has grown on me since :
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Do you think this looks like an imminent LibDem gain ?
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
Everyone knows that the Conservatives’ current preferred xenophobia is anti-Muslim. Claiming virtue by not being as anti-Jewish as some Labour supporters is, in the circumstances, feeble.
I think the concern about anti-Jewish feeling in Labour is more about it being within the leadership of the party and/or its failure to deal with it effectively.
But your statement is a very broad brush one: “everyone knows”? The evidence for the Tories being anti-Muslim? Any particular proposals etc? (I’m well aware of your concern about the Turkey and Farage poster during the referendum.)
I would ask for your evidence but as I’m about to go off to the garden centre - it being a glorious day for being outside not hunched over a screen, I will wish you all a pleasant day.
Quite so. Mr Meeks is all to keen to jump on anyone making such a sweeping statement such as he just has....
The interesting challenge for the Tories is that the majority of their voter base is pro-hard Brexit, while the majority of the Parliamentary party is against. The party banked the UKIP vote it got again on Thursday at the GE in 2017 and the challenge now is to keep it onside, while attracting the extra votes needed to get a majority and preventing a seepage of votes to the LibDems in Tory Remain areas. A conundrum.
On-topic: has Corbyn's bubble burst? No but it has perhaps deflated a little.
Labour and Corbyn did remarkably well in GE2017 by harvesting "risk free" votes from people who knew Labour could not possibly get in. Or such was the narrative -- but it looks from Thursday that an awful lot of those voters have not been scared back to nurse.
Corbyn's bubble might have stopped rising but it is not sinking either. Theresa May won't be calling another snap election on the back of Thursday's results.
On-topic: has Corbyn's bubble burst? No but it has perhaps deflated a little.
Labour and Corbyn did remarkably well in GE2017 by harvesting "risk free" votes from people who knew Labour could not possibly get in. Or such was the narrative -- but it looks from Thursday that an awful lot of those voters have not been scared back to nurse.
Corbyn's bubble might have stopped rising but it is not sinking either. Theresa May won't be calling another snap election on the back of Thursday's results.
Thursday was not about electing Corbyn as PM though. Still "risk free" putting the X against Labour. (Although those few hard left councils that were happy to be held up as Corbynite did fare badly....)
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
What were the shares of the votes in London?
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
I guess multi-candidate wards complicate the equation, though you could just take the votes for the best performing candidate for each party
What did the you gov poll say for London?.. just looked it up myself. It was51/29. How does that standings of Moe?
I would not be too surprised if it was within the MOE or close to it. In terms of votes, Labour was only 1 or 2 % behind in Wandsworth. In Barnet it was also close. Westminster, I have not seen any figures. In other places, Labour piled on the numbers.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
"nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent"
Oh, FFS. No side in any conflict is ever 'consistently decent' - war is sadly messy. But when you are looking at a pseudo-Russian invasion of, and interference with, a sovereign country then there is 'mostly decent' versus 'outright evil'.
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
What were the shares of the votes in London?
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
I guess multi-candidate wards complicate the equation, though you could just take the votes for the best performing candidate for each party
I'll try and crunch the numbers.
Some individual borough scores are Harrow 47% Lab to 45% Con, Barnet 44% Con to 39% Lab, Enfield 55% Lab to 34% Con, Croydon 44% Lab to 40% Con, Westminster 43% Con to 41% Lab, Richmond 47% Lib Dem to 38% Con.
Richmond Park was probably very close on those results - especially if the reports of hundreds of EU votes per ward are correct.
Without looking at the individual wards it seems that the Conservatives have totally collapsed in both Enfield and Ilford but are holding on better in the Chingford and Woodford area.
The next census will show some significant demographic changes I expect.
On-topic: has Corbyn's bubble burst? No but it has perhaps deflated a little.
Labour and Corbyn did remarkably well in GE2017 by harvesting "risk free" votes from people who knew Labour could not possibly get in. Or such was the narrative -- but it looks from Thursday that an awful lot of those voters have not been scared back to nurse.
Corbyn's bubble might have stopped rising but it is not sinking either. Theresa May won't be calling another snap election on the back of Thursday's results.
Thursday was not about electing Corbyn as PM though. Still "risk free" putting the X against Labour. (Although those few hard left councils that were happy to be held up as Corbynite did fare badly....)
There's lots of voters who can vote risk free for Corbyn at a GE even if he is expected to win.
Because they either have nothing to lose or will be protected.
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
Yes. Tories got smashed. Barnet being your only achievement. UKIP did not even have too many to lose. London was always bigot free.
The Tories did not get "smashed" and London is not the country.
It was in reply to your post on London figures. You are correct London is not the country. I was talking about London as you were.
Labour targetted about 5 Tory councils in London and didn't win any of them. Maybe they should have concentrated on just one, like Wandsworth for instance.
The media said they targeted and the party did not deny it since the newbies got carried away. Westminster, Wandsworth, Kensington was always out of reach. Wandsworth is one place where I know of Labour supporters voting Tory because of the council tax. They vote differently in the GE. In fact, they did very well in Wandsworth. Barnet was the loss.
What the Local Elections prove is that while the general election demonstrated the voters were in no mood to give the Tories a landslide, they are also in no mood to give Corbyn Labour a majority either.
The fact the Tories and Labour ended up tied in the national NEV voteshare proved that. Indeed if there was a general election tomorrow it is very possible the LDs, who were up to 16% of the vote, could well end up determining whether May or Corbyn would become PM
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
What were the shares of the votes in London?
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
I guess multi-candidate wards complicate the equation, though you could just take the votes for the best performing candidate for each party
I'll try and crunch the numbers.
Some individual borough scores are Harrow 47% Lab to 45% Con, Barnet 44% Con to 39% Lab, Enfield 55% Lab to 34% Con, Croydon 44% Lab to 40% Con, Westminster 43% Con to 41% Lab, Richmond 47% Lib Dem to 38% Con.
Richmond Park was probably very close on those results - especially if the reports of hundreds of EU votes per ward are correct.
Without looking at the individual wards it seems that the Conservatives have totally collapsed in both Enfield and Ilford but are holding on better in the Chingford and Woodford area.
The next census will show some significant demographic changes I expect.
IDS will be retiring next time unless he wants to lose.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
"What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism."
That in and of itself is enough to ensure that under Corbyn Labour can never win a majority. Throw in very vocal backing for anti-democratic, murderous regimes in places like Venezuela and Cuba, as well as his decades-long sharing of platforms with anti-Semites and Jewbaiters, and Labour has an electability problem, as well as a morality one.
But, of course, the choice for Labour is not between Jeremy and a neo-liberal Blairite leader. There are plenty of other options. The party has undoubtedly shifted to the left and Corbyn has taught it not to fear the power of the right wing media - which is a huge and immensely valuable lesson - but to prevent the likes of Rees Mogg and Johnson shaping the UK's future, Jeremy will have to step down before the next GE. I am beginning to feel he just might.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
"nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent"
Oh, FFS. No side in any conflict is ever 'consistently decent' - war is sadly messy. But when you are looking at a pseudo-Russian invasion of, and interference with, a sovereign country then there is 'mostly decent' versus 'outright evil'.
Considering Russia "invaded" a country which is 90% Russian and was part of Russia until 1954 when Khruschev gave it to Ukraine simply to increase the numbers of Russians in that country.
I don't think Crimeans ever felt they were anything other than Russians. One feel sorry about the Tatars though.
Remind me, what was the rationale for invading Iraq ?
Off topic, I had an interesting chat with one of our clerks yesterday. She is Leicester born, of Antiguan descent (Leicesters small West Indian community seems disproportionately of Antiguan descent). I asked her if she knew anyone affected by this Windrush scandal. She says her own cousin had been on the news, having been in detention pending deportation. Her elderly, RAF veteran father said he knows at least a dozen people who have been deported despite being legally here since the Sixties.
It sounds as if the numbers are going to be huge, and these stories getting more and more coverage, being good human interest. I have my doubts as to the Home Offices capability to sort it out. This is a story with legs.
Off topic, I had an interesting chat with one of our clerks yesterday. She is Leicester born, of Antiguan descent (Leicesters small West Indian community seems disproportionately of Antiguan descent). I asked her if she knew anyone affected by this Windrush scandal. She says her own cousin had been on the news, having been in detention pending deportation. Her elderly, RAF veteran father said he knows at least a dozen people who have been deported despite being legally here since the Sixties.
It sounds as if the numbers are going to be huge, and these stories getting more and more coverage, being good human interest. I have my doubts as to the Home Offices capability to sort it out. This is a story with legs.
Comments
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
If the Commons passed a law ending elections, that wouldn't be acceptable just because they're MPs. I fear that they, and people such as yourself, dramatically underestimate the anger and resentment that will be provoked if, after decades of campaigning for a say, the electorate makes a decision (having been promised it would be carried out) and the political class decides to do otherwise.
Showing contempt for the electorate, and for democracy, is not a wise thing.
Still, some are more comfortable simply shouting "Racist" or "Little Englander" or "you are the vanguard of the far right party that you fear". It's easier to denounce than debate.
I also recall having a most perplexing conversation with a Conservative peer who exuded all charm, wit and decency and then went off on one about Churchill being substantially complicit with the holocaust.
The theory being that Hitler and Churchill had agreed secretly that the British forces would be allowed to effectively withdraw from Dunkirk to fight another day, in return for the Nazis being given a free hand to deal with the "Jewish problem". Hitler determined that Churchill's American family were virulently anti-Semetic and a pragmatic Churchill would seize the chance and enter into a pact with the devil as Stalin had done in 1939.
It's a view !!
Once you deduct that 5% bonus from the LibDem performance in every area, I'm not sure it points to many seat gains for them in a general election, except perhaps Richmond Park.
The LibDems increased their's by 16% from 461 to 536.
BTW how do you think we can have a sovereign debt crisis now that all major economies have invested in printing presses? How do they ever default?
Further, whilst Labour's position appears worse as it *ought* to be doing better, upsurges in protest voting are hugely more likely to be against a sitting government, when it does something (or things go) wrong, rather than oppositions. Whereas most people repelled by Corbyn are already voting Tory.
Harrods had a series of 'Jewish humour' Christmas cards they were forced to withdraw.
Mary & Joseph with donkey en route to Bethlehem.
'Its Christmas, I'm pregnant, we're late and YOU haven't booked a room. TERRIFIC!'
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
In my experience, knocking on thousands of doors in numerous constituencies over decades, most of the electorate are only concerned about practical issues that directly affect them. Yes - dustbins and potholes, but also housing for them or their kids, their local school or hospital etc. Very few people are fired up by abstract concepts such as sovereignty or customs unions or FTAs.
The people who cry betrayal of the electorate are themselves a political elite, or at least a political clique.
More generally, though, I think Brexit is going to be decisive. If it is perceived to have worked out well, the Tories will be fine, and probably May too - why not reward the architect of the triumph? If it isn't, they're probably stuffed one way or another - Labour uptick, Tory abstentions, LibDem surge, defections, whatever.
What is interesting is that the "old" anti-Tory coalition is beginning to emerge. Liberals taking on the Tories is some parts and Labour in other parts.
We must not forget Labour did not win Wandsworth or Westminster even in 1994. Barnet would have been won but for recent events.
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Plenty to chew over and digest from the repast that was the local elections 2018.
As a LD, delighted to see progress made and seats gained. We are by no means back where we were but it's a big step in the right direction and thanks less to anything Vince Cable has said and done but down to the sheer hard graft from activists on the ground.
Within the advance, though, there's plenty for the LDs to consider. Of the 151 Councillors in London, 111 are in just three authorities (Kingston, Richmond and Sutton) with only 40 on the other twenty-nine Councils and far too many with no LD representation at all.
Yes, the victories in Kingston and Richmond were significant and overwhelming but no less creditable was holding Sutton in the face of a sustained Conservative onslaught. 12 seats were lost, however, and the Council has had a warning shot across its bows.
Small islands of strength are surrounded by vast oceans of weakness - up to a point, that's always been true of the LDs and true to some extent of the other parties as well - but these results continue to confirm the notion for the Party. There are very sporadic areas of growing strength where none existed before and larger areas of previous strength reduced to nothing.
As is often the case with local election results, there are good things and bad things to be taken. The 2018 round wasn't a complete success for the Conservatives - they lost over 100 Councillors in London, control of Trafford, the vaunted northern flagship, and there were some worrying results in the south (Tandridge being a very good example).
Nor were they a complete disaster for Labour - the Party gained Councillors in London, won Plymouth, won back Tower Hamlets and scored some good results elsewhere.
I find it complex and intriguing - not entirely as a result of 23/6/16, the political geography is shifting and changing. Both Labour and the Conservatives are making progress in areas which for generations had been areas of weakness for them and losing ground in areas of previous and traditional strength.
It may be (it may not of course) that the 2019 local election round will see the Conservatives enjoy a post-EU departure afterglow. They'll need to as they will be defending seats won on the night of Cameron's GE victory. With upwards of 5,000 seats to defend (and 200 UKIP seats as well) Labour, the LDs and others may think there are seats to be won.
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
The LibDems gained 74 councillors but in 2014 they lost 310 councillors ** - that's a 24% recovery rate.
At the equivalent third year in opposition stage Hague's Conservatives recovered 42% of the councillors they had lost four years previously.
Likewise EdM's Labour in 2013 recovered 100% of the councillors they had lost four years previously - the high score helped by having the two other main parties both in government.
I'm sure we all remember that the subsequent general election performances of Hague and EdM was not impressive.
** All data from wikipedia.
However, what that leaves us with is statsis. It is also becoming absolutely clear that with Corbyn and the far left in control, Labour is not going to overtake the Tories in seat numbers, let alone win a majority. As things stand, it looks like the next general election will produce a result that will be pretty similar to the last one. What changes that? The first party to find a leader who does not automatically repel 40% of voters will probably reap the reward. The challenge for both parties is to find one.
May is not going to change that dynamic; I doubt she’s even capable of doing so. Is any prospective successor this side of the next election ?
One might ask a similar question about Great Uncle Vince (Corbyn, unlike the other two, is very likely indeed to fight the next election).
You can only compare their performance against current national polling - and they did well.
Some individual borough scores are Harrow 47% Lab to 45% Con, Barnet 44% Con to 39% Lab, Enfield 55% Lab to 34% Con, Croydon 44% Lab to 40% Con, Westminster 43% Con to 41% Lab, Richmond 47% Lib Dem to 38% Con.
So what is the proper figure/ comparison we should be using? I'm not sure.....but NEV is quite good if flawed since these areas are mainly concentrated in areas where there aren't *that* many Labour/Tory parliamentary fights. I know NEV tries to iron this out however.
The NEV share for Lib dems is 16% on this figure they are clearly up from local elections during the coalition government so are the biggest gainers. i wouldn't call them the clear winners however.
That adds up to a lot of people but they tend to be concentrated in the same areas.
And the identity politics Corbyn deals in works as a project fear for all those not in one of Corbyn's voting blocks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_1995
Well done to TSE and David Herdson for their predictions. Sage Yorkshire-men.
It it also seems from the NEV* share that there is potential for more people to vote LD where there are winnable seats, the key is to identify and target these. It will be a long slow road back.
*Though 14% of a 30% turnout may well be exactly the same as 7% of a 60% turnout. GOTV muddies the waters if LD voters are keener to vote.
But your statement is a very broad brush one: “everyone knows”? The evidence for the Tories being anti-Muslim? Any particular proposals etc? (I’m well aware of your concern about the Turkey and Farage poster during the referendum.)
I would ask for your evidence but as I’m about to go off to the garden centre - it being a glorious day for being outside not hunched over a screen, I will wish you all a pleasant day.
It's riven with in-fighting.
I dont think Leicester will win another point this season, so bet the house on West Ham today, and Arsenal on Wednesday. Our midfield is injured and our defence abject, and the players clearly want Puel gone. The owners gave him a vote of confidence this week, which surely means defenestration is imminent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Cambridgeshire_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Or this ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
Regardless, even by accident [ though I don't think so ], the Lib Dem vote was more efficiently distributed. There is no point with spreading the 16% butter on the toast evenly. Better to concentrate more in certain areas where you have a chance of winning. In that sense, the Lib Dem did very well. Also the anti-Tory coalition is back [ cough, cough: some Labour supporters helped your cause ]. Your next port of call should be those areas just south-west of London. The demography is not that different. Bermondsey is lost and don't dream about Vauxhall.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
https://youtu.be/tSC3RMstJl8
Labour and Corbyn did remarkably well in GE2017 by harvesting "risk free" votes from people who knew Labour could not possibly get in. Or such was the narrative -- but it looks from Thursday that an awful lot of those voters have not been scared back to nurse.
Corbyn's bubble might have stopped rising but it is not sinking either. Theresa May won't be calling another snap election on the back of Thursday's results.
Oh, FFS. No side in any conflict is ever 'consistently decent' - war is sadly messy. But when you are looking at a pseudo-Russian invasion of, and interference with, a sovereign country then there is 'mostly decent' versus 'outright evil'.
Without looking at the individual wards it seems that the Conservatives have totally collapsed in both Enfield and Ilford but are holding on better in the Chingford and Woodford area.
The next census will show some significant demographic changes I expect.
Because they either have nothing to lose or will be protected.
The fact the Tories and Labour ended up tied in the national NEV voteshare proved that. Indeed if there was a general election tomorrow it is very possible the LDs, who were up to 16% of the vote, could well end up determining whether May or Corbyn would become PM
That in and of itself is enough to ensure that under Corbyn Labour can never win a majority. Throw in very vocal backing for anti-democratic, murderous regimes in places like Venezuela and Cuba, as well as his decades-long sharing of platforms with anti-Semites and Jewbaiters, and Labour has an electability problem, as well as a morality one.
But, of course, the choice for Labour is not between Jeremy and a neo-liberal Blairite leader. There are plenty of other options. The party has undoubtedly shifted to the left and Corbyn has taught it not to fear the power of the right wing media - which is a huge and immensely valuable lesson - but to prevent the likes of Rees Mogg and Johnson shaping the UK's future, Jeremy will have to step down before the next GE. I am beginning to feel he just might.
I don't think Crimeans ever felt they were anything other than Russians. One feel sorry about the Tatars though.
Remind me, what was the rationale for invading Iraq ?
It sounds as if the numbers are going to be huge, and these stories getting more and more coverage, being good human interest. I have my doubts as to the Home Offices capability to sort it out. This is a story with legs.