When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
He's a Fathers4Justice type... used to turn up in a big Elmo muppet suit at high-profile elections. I think "El" and "Mo" are the names of his daughters.
There’s hospitality vacancies all over the Lake District. Same as in Haulage. What the consequences are of a severe labour shortage, I don’t know.
I think @Philip_Thompson is right that it isn’t entirely down to Brexit but it does likely plays a part.
Hospitality vacancies are everywhere. But then you have over two million on furlough still. Many of those jobs will go when furlough is withdrawn so some of these vacancies will be filled.
Anecdotal, but when we were having a meal locally I spoke to the restaurant manager and he said a few of their former staff had got jobs on the same salary but more social hours in local supermarkets and warehouses.
The number of vaccancies is a good sign, that the ending of the furlough scheme isn’t going to dump a couple of million people on the dole - although I doubt BA and EasyJet captains are going to pay their school fees working in Tesco or Wetherspoons.
As @Philip_Thompson points out, the end result will be wages going up for working antisocial hours. Which is a good thing.
Your first paragraph nails it. Job vacancies and people out of work are not a straight fit solution to each other. Are the jobs on offer suitable for the people seeking employment and vice versa. We are bound to see both a big list of job vacancies and a significant number of people coming off furlough into a lack of work.
Oh, indeed there will be a skills gap, but there won’t be a lack of opportunity to do something.
Maybe the redundant pilots could retrain as lorry drivers? There’s probably quite a few doing just that at the moment. The skillset is remarkably similar.
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
He's a Fathers4Justice type... used to turn up in a big Elmo muppet suit at high-profile elections. I think "El" and "Mo" are the names of his daughters.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
She's one of the reasons I think Nick Clegg should have demanded the Home Office during the Coalition. He might not have been good; he couldn't have been worse.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
No. Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket received one vote in Cardiff North in 2005. Bobby is second on that list.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
He's a Fathers4Justice type... used to turn up in a big Elmo muppet suit at high-profile elections. I think "El" and "Mo" are the names of his daughters.
I see, a personal mission.
He must have got seven other people to sign his nomination papers though.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
Why would May, who has atrocious people skills, be any more successful as secretary-general of NATO, which is a strained alliance that needs exceptional leadership and engagement to repivot and reinvigorate itself in the years to come?
I wouldn't support her candidacy.
Theresa May is 64 years old, which is older than recent secretaries general. She has no discernible interest in foreign, diplomatic or military matters. The whole May-for-NATO thing sounds like silly season gossip with perhaps a dash of wishful thinking from Boris who'd like to be rid of a critic.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
I am genuinely struggling to understand why you would think that. The job of the Secretary General is to coordinate different views, build a consensus and then sell that consensus to the less than enthusiastic so that unity is maintained. What in May's entire career makes you think that she has any talent for these things at all?
One rather obvious, if exceptionally difficult, episode makes it clear that this is the exact opposite of her skill set. Even her time in the Home Office seemed to be very much apart from the rest of Cameron's government. She represented a chunk of the Conservative party that Cameron had to get onside so he left her alone but a team player she wasn't.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
It’s the name of the next king!
Oh, you mean your surname. (I got schoolboy jokes about my surname too).
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
No. Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket received one vote in Cardiff North in 2005. Bobby is second on that list.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
There's something poetic and interestingly apt about a Vote For Yourself party getting a historic 1 vote.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
There’s hospitality vacancies all over the Lake District. Same as in Haulage. What the consequences are of a severe labour shortage, I don’t know.
I think @Philip_Thompson is right that it isn’t entirely down to Brexit but it does likely plays a part.
Although there was an interesting interview on Today this morning with a restauranteur who was struggling to find staff. Usually sort of stuff - I advertised, great wage, only got one applicant etc etc.
It wasn’t until the end that they revealed it was in Philadelphia.
So? Surely there are people in the wider Washington / Sunderland / Gateshead area who can cook who fancy a job.
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
No. Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket received one vote in Cardiff North in 2005. Bobby is second on that list.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
There's something poetic and interestingly apt about a Vote for Yourself party getting a historic 1 vote.
Given that one needs ten people to sign nomination papers, that’s an impressive result.
There’s hospitality vacancies all over the Lake District. Same as in Haulage. What the consequences are of a severe labour shortage, I don’t know.
I think @Philip_Thompson is right that it isn’t entirely down to Brexit but it does likely plays a part.
Hospitality vacancies are everywhere. But then you have over two million on furlough still. Many of those jobs will go when furlough is withdrawn so some of these vacancies will be filled.
Anecdotal, but when we were having a meal locally I spoke to the restaurant manager and he said a few of their former staff had got jobs on the same salary but more social hours in local supermarkets and warehouses.
The number of vaccancies is a good sign, that the ending of the furlough scheme isn’t going to dump a couple of million people on the dole - although I doubt BA and EasyJet captains are going to pay their school fees working in Tesco or Wetherspoons.
As @Philip_Thompson points out, the end result will be wages going up for working antisocial hours. Which is a good thing.
Your first paragraph nails it. Job vacancies and people out of work are not a straight fit solution to each other. Are the jobs on offer suitable for the people seeking employment and vice versa. We are bound to see both a big list of job vacancies and a significant number of people coming off furlough into a lack of work.
Oh, indeed there will be a skills gap, but there won’t be a lack of opportunity to do something.
Maybe the redundant pilots could retrain as lorry drivers? There’s probably quite a few doing just that at the moment. The skillset is remarkably similar.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
To be fair, some of the jokes *might* have been original..... in about 1730...
Why would May, who has atrocious people skills, be any more successful as secretary-general of NATO, which is a strained alliance that needs exceptional leadership and engagement to repivot and reinvigorate itself in the years to come?
I wouldn't support her candidacy.
Theresa May is 64 years old, which is older than recent secretaries general. She has no discernible interest in foreign, diplomatic or military matters. The whole May-for-NATO thing sounds like silly season gossip with perhaps a dash of wishful thinking from Boris who'd like to be rid of a critic.
I'm not sure she'd be brilliant, but she fits the profile for a NATO Secretary General. Recent post-holders are ex-PMs of Norway and Denmark, and the last UK one was Robertson who'd been Defence Secretary. An ex-UK PM, even a rather unsuccessful one, would be a perfectly credible, serious candidate.
I mean, I don't know if she actually is interested. But I can see why she might be (it's a better job than pootling around Berkshire dealing with pavements and potholes at the fag end of your career), and why she'd have a good shot at getting it.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
Presumably a racist who appoints minority ethnic people to be Home Secretary, Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can you divorce colourful writing about colonialism from how a person behaves? I don't believe Johnson is racist - if its female he'd try to shag it, if its male he'll try to screw it over... Equal opportunities...
Is it not possible to treat individuals you know personally in a non racist way, but still be willing to use racist dog whistles and jokes to win votes?
This government, and therefore the PM, do deserve significant and real credit for the racial diversity in their cabinet, but equally that does not put them beyond reproach and scrutiny on the subject.
You have an article written 20 years ago by a journalist with a flair for using “colourful” language to cut through with the imagery that he wants
You have a PM who’s appointments to the Cabinet suggest skin colour simply isn’t a factor in appointments vs the usual considerations (loyalty, competence, party balance etc).
I would argue the second is more indicative of what the PM believes. Remember the old saying: pay attention to what someone does, not what they say
Er, Mr Johnson is a politician. Politicians are there to say things. It's a key part of their job. That's a bit like saying that Cicero's speeches were irrelevant - in content and style - to his success (even if he did kill off the Catilinian conspirators arguably illegally, if memory serves).
Why would May, who has atrocious people skills, be any more successful as secretary-general of NATO, which is a strained alliance that needs exceptional leadership and engagement to repivot and reinvigorate itself in the years to come?
I wouldn't support her candidacy.
Theresa May is 64 years old, which is older than recent secretaries general. She has no discernible interest in foreign, diplomatic or military matters. The whole May-for-NATO thing sounds like silly season gossip with perhaps a dash of wishful thinking from Boris who'd like to be rid of a critic.
I'm not sure she'd be brilliant, but she fits the profile for a NATO Secretary General. Recent post-holders are ex-PMs of Norway and Denmark, and the last UK one was Robertson who'd been Defence Secretary. An ex-UK PM, even a rather unsuccessful one, would be a perfectly credible, serious candidate.
I mean, I don't know if she actually is interested. But I can see why she might be (it's a better job than pootling around Berkshire dealing with pavements and potholes at the fag end of your career), and why she'd have a good shot at getting it.
Maybe she's being volunteered? Or given the political equivalent of a posting to Limoges?
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
It’s the name of the next king!
Oh, you mean your surname. (I got schoolboy jokes about my surname too).
I got called 'Notmorris' at school because when someone shouted in my direction 'Morris' I responded with 'I'm not Morris'.
Morris or anything sounding like Morris is nothing like my name.
There’s hospitality vacancies all over the Lake District. Same as in Haulage. What the consequences are of a severe labour shortage, I don’t know.
I think @Philip_Thompson is right that it isn’t entirely down to Brexit but it does likely plays a part.
Hospitality vacancies are everywhere. But then you have over two million on furlough still. Many of those jobs will go when furlough is withdrawn so some of these vacancies will be filled.
Anecdotal, but when we were having a meal locally I spoke to the restaurant manager and he said a few of their former staff had got jobs on the same salary but more social hours in local supermarkets and warehouses.
The number of vaccancies is a good sign, that the ending of the furlough scheme isn’t going to dump a couple of million people on the dole - although I doubt BA and EasyJet captains are going to pay their school fees working in Tesco or Wetherspoons.
As @Philip_Thompson points out, the end result will be wages going up for working antisocial hours. Which is a good thing.
Your first paragraph nails it. Job vacancies and people out of work are not a straight fit solution to each other. Are the jobs on offer suitable for the people seeking employment and vice versa. We are bound to see both a big list of job vacancies and a significant number of people coming off furlough into a lack of work.
Oh, indeed there will be a skills gap, but there won’t be a lack of opportunity to do something.
Maybe the redundant pilots could retrain as lorry drivers? There’s probably quite a few doing just that at the moment. The skillset is remarkably similar.
Not the status or remuneration though...
Indeed not, but miles better than a minimum wage job.
Actually, many long-haul pilots I know had a ‘second job’ even before the pandemic, usually in the trades. Having a job that’s legally restricted to 900 hours a year, leaves you with an awful lot of free time.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
How has he turned away from Liar? If Charlotte Nichols unexpectly got the NATO job and there was a by-election he'll be voting Tory. They all do, the supposed "moral high ground" PB Tories.
You don't get the Tories to stop doing all the Bad Things by voting Tory.
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
No. Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket received one vote in Cardiff North in 2005. Bobby is second on that list.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
There's something poetic and interestingly apt about a Vote for Yourself party getting a historic 1 vote.
Given that one needs ten people to sign nomination papers, that’s an impressive result.
I don't think she did vote for herself as I don't think she lived there, but may be wrong.
On nomination papers, that's true although it's really common for people to nominate someone without voting for them for paper or minor candidates. If someone approached you in the street to ask you to sign a nomination paper for "Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket", would you do it? Probably, if they were polite about it, I'd have thought.
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
No. Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket received one vote in Cardiff North in 2005. Bobby is second on that list.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
There's something poetic and interestingly apt about a Vote for Yourself party getting a historic 1 vote.
Given that one needs ten people to sign nomination papers, that’s an impressive result.
I don't think she did vote for herself as I don't think she lived there, but may be wrong.
On nomination papers, that's true although it's really common for people to nominate someone without voting for them for paper or minor candidates. If someone approached you in the street to ask you to sign a nomination paper for "Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket", would you do it? Probably, if they were polite about it, I'd have thought.
Oh, of course. Most people would likely sign anyone’s nomination paper, except for the BNP or Communist candidate.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
How has he turned away from Liar? If Charlotte Nichols unexpectly got the NATO job and there was a by-election he'll be voting Tory. They all do, the supposed "moral high ground" PB Tories.
You don't get the Tories to stop doing all the Bad Things by voting Tory.
I think Phil voted UKIP rather than give his vote to the diabolical Theresa.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
You're just being silly now, Brexit hasn't expelled a single EU citizen. Anyone who was legally here by the time of Brexit, ended 11 months after Brexit, is entitled to register to stay and over 5.6 million EU citizens did just that.
As for the past half century what I've said for a while, and I stand by even if he's lost my support, is that Boris is in the top 3 most consequential post-war PMs*. They are for me in order: Thatcher, Attlee and Boris. So yes past half century would be Thatcher and Boris. Who would you put in your list and why?
Just because he's consequential doesn't mean I have to agree with, or support him. I wouldn't have supported Attlee, I think the country was definitely worse for him having been PM, but he was undoubtedly consequential for setting up the welfare state even if much of it was a disaster that led to decades of the UK falling behind our continental neighbours until Thatcher fixed the mistakes of the postwar consensus.
* I'm excluding from this list Churchill for the fact that his great legacies were achieved during the war and not post war.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
Yes. Hence Tory Party invisibility in the seat. It looks to me like a lot of Tories stayed home.
The “Tory + Heavy Woolens + Brexit” vote declined from 51.2% to 35%, and whole some of those Heavy Woolens went to Galloway, I doubt this was more than 5% of the total vote.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
How has he turned away from Liar? If Charlotte Nichols unexpectly got the NATO job and there was a by-election he'll be voting Tory. They all do, the supposed "moral high ground" PB Tories.
You don't get the Tories to stop doing all the Bad Things by voting Tory.
I think Phil voted UKIP rather than give his vote to the diabolical Theresa.
Brexit, yes I did.
That vote helped contribute to the downfall of May and the expulsion of Farage from the European Parliament. Two birds, one stone.
Interestingly Bolsover narrowly fails to make the list. I think Labour can still win Bolsover again in the future albeit difficult to win back but none of these seats apart from maybe Stoke North or Telford are likely to elect Labour MPs again.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
I'm not sure what exactly the Tories were expected to do regarding Galloway. Should they have been saying to Muslims, "if you vote for him, you're nasty racists" etc. etc.?
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
I am genuinely struggling to understand why you would think that. The job of the Secretary General is to coordinate different views, build a consensus and then sell that consensus to the less than enthusiastic so that unity is maintained. What in May's entire career makes you think that she has any talent for these things at all?
One rather obvious, if exceptionally difficult, episode makes it clear that this is the exact opposite of her skill set. Even her time in the Home Office seemed to be very much apart from the rest of Cameron's government. She represented a chunk of the Conservative party that Cameron had to get onside so he left her alone but a team player she wasn't.
I agree that May is a poor consensus builder and prefers to do her thing without the faff of getting people on board. That was lethal for her Premiership - tried to get a huge majority in 2017 to enable herself not to bother, totally failed, then bizarrely said "nothing has changed" and acted accordingly.
BUT... she is the ex-PM (albeit an undistinguished one) of a nuclear power and Security Council permanent member. That does, in reality, give her a status and gravitas in the wider world that she can lend to NATO as an organisation. Her flaws need to be managed, but she's not some kind of King Ralph figure, comically ill-suited to that sort of position. Of the people who might be interested in the job, she's got quite a bit in her favour, as well as arguments against.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
I think it was Frank Skinner who said you should never make fun of someone's name because no matter how witty you are, over their lifetime they are bound to have heard it before.
Why would May, who has atrocious people skills, be any more successful as secretary-general of NATO, which is a strained alliance that needs exceptional leadership and engagement to repivot and reinvigorate itself in the years to come?
I wouldn't support her candidacy.
She seems well suited as an MP or Minister, but not more.
I think May would be a perfectly good leader of NATO tbh.
Why?
On the plus side: It gets her out of the Commons.
Why don't you want her in the Commons? Presumably because her devotion to Boris falls a little short of your own.
Because she is a nasty, horrid individual who think it is appropriate to send vans to areas of minorities telling people to "GO HOME", was an atrocious Home Secretary that led to the Windrush scandal, was a disastrous Prime Minister, and as a backbencher is a leading NIMBY wanting to prevent new housing being built. She represents the very worst characteristics of the Tory Party. If she never becomes a Minister again it will be too soon and if she's never going to be a Minister again then she is 'bed blocking' the seat from fresh talent that could be good in the future unlike her.
Boris lost my support with his extension of lockdown last month and I've been supporting since last year Tory rebels like Steve Baker who have been challenging the party on lockdown restrictions.
One could argue that sending a few silly vans around was small fry compared to the actual expulsion of EU citizens that Brexit brought about, but let that pass. I hadn't realized you'd turned against Boris though (only a few days ago you were saying he was the second greatest PM in the last half century). Apologies and wow!
How has he turned away from Liar? If Charlotte Nichols unexpectly got the NATO job and there was a by-election he'll be voting Tory. They all do, the supposed "moral high ground" PB Tories.
You don't get the Tories to stop doing all the Bad Things by voting Tory.
I think Phil voted UKIP rather than give his vote to the diabolical Theresa.
Phil voted for Farage and the Brexit Party in Spring 2019 yes as he opposed Theresa, he switched back to the Tories when Boris took over
Confectionery giant Haribo has warned a shortage of lorry drivers is causing difficulties getting its sweets to shops in the UK https://trib.al/1iMTUNP
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
Oz Katerji @OzKaterji A lot has been said about Batley and Spen, including by me, but not enough has focused on how the Tories just basically sat back and watched Galloway pump poison into the race so they could win. Cynical, cowardly, and they were rightfully beaten by an outstanding candidate.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
Confectionery giant Haribo has warned a shortage of lorry drivers is causing difficulties getting its sweets to shops in the UK https://trib.al/1iMTUNP
Maybe they need to up their prices?
This lorries and deliveries issue will be a leading story within a couple of weeks, I think.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
Yes. Hence Tory Party invisibility in the seat. It looks to me like a lot of Tories stayed home.
The “Tory + Heavy Woolens + Brexit” vote declined from 51.2% to 35%, and whole some of those Heavy Woolens went to Galloway, I doubt this was more than 5% of the total vote.
I don't know that part of the world well at all, it's 20 miles from me and I've never really had occasion to go there very often. So I dunno if the Tory vote there tends toward the Remainery Tory vote who are appalled with Johnson. But it might very well be, which would lend weight to your theory.
Confectionery giant Haribo has warned a shortage of lorry drivers is causing difficulties getting its sweets to shops in the UK https://trib.al/1iMTUNP
Maybe they need to up their prices?
Cue posters saying a decline in German confectionary will help our balance of payments.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
I think it was Frank Skinner who said you should never make fun of someone's name because no matter how witty you are, over their lifetime they are bound to have heard it before.
I have a very unusual first name, which is regularly mistaken for a surname mispronounced misspelled
Usually try to good-naturedly put up with it and politely correct except when someone insists that I am wrong. Which irritates the hell out of me!
Oz Katerji @OzKaterji A lot has been said about Batley and Spen, including by me, but not enough has focused on how the Tories just basically sat back and watched Galloway pump poison into the race so they could win. Cynical, cowardly, and they were rightfully beaten by an outstanding candidate.
What were they supposed to do? Not engaging in a poisonous debate, while quietly working phone banks and social media, sounds like the ideal strategy in a seat like this.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
Sec Gen of NATO so far as I can see goes to ex PMs and ministers who are loved by the great and the good that surround international diplomacy rather and don't wish further to deal with murky domestic politics. Say Turkey was invaded by Russia. Technically that should trigger Art 5, but due to their err... less than stellar behaviour recently Biden might not want to commit. There's going to be no better figure for saying "Nothing has changed" than May whilst some face saving fudge is found.
Oz Katerji @OzKaterji A lot has been said about Batley and Spen, including by me, but not enough has focused on how the Tories just basically sat back and watched Galloway pump poison into the race so they could win. Cynical, cowardly, and they were rightfully beaten by an outstanding candidate.
What were they supposed to do? Not engaging in a poisonous debate, while quietly working phone banks and social media, sounds like the ideal strategy in a seat like this.
Of the people who might be interested in the job, she's got quite a bit in her favour, as well as arguments against.
#may4nato has to be viewed in the context of the competition. Sophie Wilmès must be a very strong contender who is very tight with the Biden administration but beyond that it's a thin field.
We need to be careful in transferring 2019 votes to the by-election result. It is tempting to assign en bloc Muslim votes to Galloway, or Woollen votes, but that is so much numerology without supporting evidence.
What we forget is the large drop in turnout. The stay-at-home party scored 15,000 votes yesterday. That's more than the winning Labour candidate.
If we re-calibrate yesterday's result using the 2019 turnout, we get:- Abstain 15,154 28% Labour 13,296 25% Tory 12,973 24% GG-WP 8,264 15%
In the 2019 general election, we saw:- Labour 22,594 43% Tory 19,069 36% Woollen 6,432 12%
So it is quite possible that disaffected voters sat at home rather than transferring their alliegance to any party.
Yep and those abstaining voters could be crucial to the next GE result (them and those like them across the country). Less engaged in politics and likely less committed to any particular party,* but with form for voting in a GE when it matters (to them).
*Why bother to vote in a by-election when the government has a safe majority? - To stick it to the government - To stick it to the party that previously had the MP (particularly if there was scandal involved) - Through a sense of duty to vote and/or tribal party loyalty - Personal vote for a candidate/support on a local issue
This is a good result for Labour (particularly with Galloway involved) but it doesn't necessarily hold big lessons for the country - or even this constituency - in the future. What it might do is change the narrative around Starmer and Labour, more positive stories might give a bit of a poll boost.
Why would May, who has atrocious people skills, be any more successful as secretary-general of NATO, which is a strained alliance that needs exceptional leadership and engagement to repivot and reinvigorate itself in the years to come?
I wouldn't support her candidacy.
Theresa May is 64 years old, which is older than recent secretaries general. She has no discernible interest in foreign, diplomatic or military matters. The whole May-for-NATO thing sounds like silly season gossip with perhaps a dash of wishful thinking from Boris who'd like to be rid of a critic.
As noted yesterday Cameron was mooted for the role last time. It's just a thing that's suggested now
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
He's a Fathers4Justice type... used to turn up in a big Elmo muppet suit at high-profile elections. I think "El" and "Mo" are the names of his daughters.
I am one of the 3 people who voted for him.
In my defence, I didn’t realise that he would wear the suit and I think fathers rights is an important topic.
Confectionery giant Haribo has warned a shortage of lorry drivers is causing difficulties getting its sweets to shops in the UK https://trib.al/1iMTUNP
Maybe they need to up their prices?
Cue posters saying a decline in German confectionary will help our balance of payments.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
I'm not sure what exactly the Tories were expected to do regarding Galloway. Should they have been saying to Muslims, "if you vote for him, you're nasty racists" etc. etc.?
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
Their very invisibility allowed the narrative to become Galloway v Labour. How many Tories voted Labour to stop GG, or for GG to kick out Labour? Probably enough to make the difference. How many stayed at home because not a great effort was made to get them out. We had anecdotal evidence on here and elsewhere of it. This is the second consecutive by election where the Tory campaign has been lethargic, bordering on comatose.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
I'm not sure what exactly the Tories were expected to do regarding Galloway. Should they have been saying to Muslims, "if you vote for him, you're nasty racists" etc. etc.?
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
I don't disagree with you, it was canny to keep shtum. It very nearly paid off and Stephenson would have been unsullied with accusations of getting in the gutter. Indeed someone's posed Brendan Cox's tweet applauding his campaigning.
Edit: I think Stephenson will be disappointed, apparently he's mad-keen to get into parliament.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
I'm not sure what exactly the Tories were expected to do regarding Galloway. Should they have been saying to Muslims, "if you vote for him, you're nasty racists" etc. etc.?
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
Their very invisibility allowed the narrative to become Galloway v Labour. How many Tories voted Labour to stop GG, or for GG to kick out Labour? Probably enough to make the difference. How many stayed at home because not a great effort was made to get them out. We had anecdotal evidence on here and elsewhere of it. This is the second consecutive by election where the Tory campaign has been lethargic, bordering on comatose.
Oz Katerji @OzKaterji A lot has been said about Batley and Spen, including by me, but not enough has focused on how the Tories just basically sat back and watched Galloway pump poison into the race so they could win. Cynical, cowardly, and they were rightfully beaten by an outstanding candidate.
What were they supposed to do? Not engaging in a poisonous debate, while quietly working phone banks and social media, sounds like the ideal strategy in a seat like this.
But were they doing that? If they were, they weren't doing it particularly well.
Whatever people think of Galloway he did very well here. The result was poor for the two main parties. The PB labour lot claiming it’s a stunning result are off their heads. They scraped home and only just. Had the election been last week I suspect they’d have lost. They clearly threw everything at it this last week.
Labour won and the party led by the disingenuous racist fat fornicator lost. That's the main takeaway and it's good news.
Agreed. And they didn’t just lose, they came third.
No, the Tories came second.
I’m sure Galloway was third.
"the party led by the racist fat fornicator" is the Tories surely.
Boris isn't racist. He's certainly the others.
The Workers Party ticks all three boxes.
If Johnson is not racist, why does he refer to black people as "piccanninies" with "watermelon" smiles? Why did he write as follows?
"If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there (...) It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."
Much later the Spectator, sneering at those who called him racist, said he was actually being "anti-imperialist".
Many readers of the Daily Telegraph and of the Spectator too - as Johnson must have been keenly aware - would have recalled another speech in which the racist word "piccaninnies" was used, there qualified with the adjective "wide-grinning". Of course he is a racist. No fault in anybody else can excuse that.
Presumably a racist who appoints minority ethnic people to be Home Secretary, Health Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer? Can you divorce colourful writing about colonialism from how a person behaves? I don't believe Johnson is racist - if its female he'd try to shag it, if its male he'll try to screw it over... Equal opportunities...
Is it not possible to treat individuals you know personally in a non racist way, but still be willing to use racist dog whistles and jokes to win votes?
This government, and therefore the PM, do deserve significant and real credit for the racial diversity in their cabinet, but equally that does not put them beyond reproach and scrutiny on the subject.
You have an article written 20 years ago by a journalist with a flair for using “colourful” language to cut through with the imagery that he wants
You have a PM who’s appointments to the Cabinet suggest skin colour simply isn’t a factor in appointments vs the usual considerations (loyalty, competence, party balance etc).
I would argue the second is more indicative of what the PM believes. Remember the old saying: pay attention to what someone does, not what they say
Er, Mr Johnson is a politician. Politicians are there to say things. It's a key part of their job. That's a bit like saying that Cicero's speeches were irrelevant - in content and style - to his success (even if he did kill off the Catilinian conspirators arguably illegally, if memory serves).
What he says matters. But it is not the only thing that matters, particularly if people rely on the same old references from donkeys years ago. The weight afforded to the latter is less than more recent words or actions, even if still of some relevance.
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
I'm not sure what exactly the Tories were expected to do regarding Galloway. Should they have been saying to Muslims, "if you vote for him, you're nasty racists" etc. etc.?
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
I don't disagree with you, it was canny to keep shtum. It very nearly paid off and Stephenson would have been unsullied with accusations of getting in the gutter. Indeed someone's posed Brendan Cox's tweet applauding his campaigning.
If the Tories had weighed in, then the loony lot would be selling #ToryStarmer this morning....
When I was looking at the Maidenhead figures I noticed that a chap called Bobby Smith, candidate for the Give Me Back My Elmo party. got 3 votes in 2017, out of a total of 58,239 cast in the constituency. Is this a record low?
He's a Fathers4Justice type... used to turn up in a big Elmo muppet suit at high-profile elections. I think "El" and "Mo" are the names of his daughters.
I see, a personal mission.
I can understand fathers for Justice having read Graham Thorpe's autobiography..
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
Giving T May a run in the cringe stakes with that.
Did he say it or was it just in print? As you need a lot of confidence in your delivery to pull that off and not end up as a 'hell yes I'm tough enough' moment. I'm not sure anyone could verbally pull that coming home line off.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
I think it's a mistake to assume that all BXP votes from 2019 go Tory at the next election, and even if they do, the Tories may lose other votes.
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Yes but that was why Hartlepool was an outlier as the BXP got 25% there in 2019, few other Tory targets have that big a BXP vote to squeeze. The combined Tory and BXP vote in Hartlepool was over 50% even in 2019, in Batley and Spen the combined Tory and BXP vote in 2019 was only 39%
All this talk about the Tories keeping quiet. This was the plan in the event of the Tory win, wasn’t it? Smear them with the racist votes for Galloway.
HYUFD posting sensible analysis as usual, he is indicative of deep worries and concerns inside the Tory camp.
I wouldn't say it is deep worries but it confirms my view that if the Tories do win again in 2023/24 it will be more a 1992 style narrow majority than a 1983 style landslide, hopes of the latter were just hubris
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
I think it's a mistake to assume that all BXP votes from 2019 go Tory at the next election, and even if they do, the Tories may lose other votes.
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Yes but that was why Hartlepool was an outlier as the BXP got 25% there in 2019, few other Tory targets have that big a BXP vote to squeeze. The combined Tory and BXP vote in Hartlepool was over 50% even in 2019, in Batley and Spen the combined Tory and BXP vote in 2019 was only 39%
Another point worth noting. Hartlepool was to replace an MP accused of sexual misconduct with a carpetbagger. This one was to replace an MP popular enough to have won the WYorks mayor with a well-known local woman whose sister was murdered. No great wider national point, except that both of them are outliers in the grand scheme of things.
We have some Dutch friends with a daughter called Siri, I don't believe this has been a problem for them - as noted in the article, their pronunciation is more 'see-ree'. Cortana and Bixby are presumably rare enough (and invoked rarely enough, particularly by the kids) to not be a problem!
Slow news day at the BBC?
The number of jokes I get about my name never ceases to surprise me… everyone thinks they are being witty and original…
I guess, from their point of view, they are?
It can be irritating though. Especially when the 'joker' obviously thinks they are splendidly original.
I think it's a risky strategy for the Tories to blame Hancock for the defeat last night, because it draws attention to the PM's role in the 'scandal'. Hancock went a week ago, but the PM who refused to sack him and declared that the matter was closed is still there. Blaming Hancock could shift the narrative to blaming BJ for his lack of decisive action, a narrative that I think has had traction. Hancock's gross hypocrisy in breaking his own rules was exacerbated by the PM's indecision in dealing with it.
Owen Jones says he feels sick this morning because a campaign source said they had to find new swing Tory to Lab voters to replace those they were losing in Muslim community over gay rights issues.
I think it's a risky strategy for the Tories to blame Hancock for the defeat last night, because it draws attention to the PM's role in the 'scandal'. Hancock went a week ago, but the PM who refused to sack him and declared that the matter was closed is still there. Blaming Hancock could shift the narrative to blaming BJ for his lack of decisive action, a narrative that I think has had traction. Hancock's gross hypocrisy in breaking his own rules was exacerbated by the PM's indecision in dealing with it.
Yes. I think it's a very poor idea for the government to do be doing that. There's three poisonous elements in the Hancock business for the Tory machine - Covid hypocrisy, which reminds people of Cummings, personal and professional sleaze, and Johnson's erratic lying and swerving post-the scandal about having asked for his resignation, with the last two again reminding people of Cummings' criticisms, too. I would shut up about it tout suite if I were them.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
I think it's a mistake to assume that all BXP votes from 2019 go Tory at the next election, and even if they do, the Tories may lose other votes.
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Yes but that was why Hartlepool was an outlier as the BXP got 25% there in 2019, few other Tory targets have that big a BXP vote to squeeze. The combined Tory and BXP vote in Hartlepool was over 50% even in 2019, in Batley and Spen the combined Tory and BXP vote in 2019 was only 39%
Another point worth noting. Hartlepool was to replace an MP accused of sexual misconduct with a carpetbagger. This one was to replace an MP popular enough to have won the WYorks mayor with a well-known local woman whose sister was murdered. No great wider national point, except that both of them are outliers in the grand scheme of things.
Probably worth repeating that in Hartlepool the Tory candidate was a bigger carpet bagger than the Labour candidate. At least Dr Paul Williams had worked in Pools, the Tory now MP had no connection with the place at all.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
I think it's a mistake to assume that all BXP votes from 2019 go Tory at the next election, and even if they do, the Tories may lose other votes.
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Yes but that was why Hartlepool was an outlier as the BXP got 25% there in 2019, few other Tory targets have that big a BXP vote to squeeze. The combined Tory and BXP vote in Hartlepool was over 50% even in 2019, in Batley and Spen the combined Tory and BXP vote in 2019 was only 39%
Another point worth noting. Hartlepool was to replace an MP accused of sexual misconduct with a carpetbagger. This one was to replace an MP popular enough to have won the WYorks mayor with a well-known local woman whose sister was murdered. No great wider national point, except that both of them are outliers in the grand scheme of things.
All this talk about the Tories keeping quiet. This was the plan in the event of the Tory win, wasn’t it? Smear them with the racist votes for Galloway.
I think it was good politics from the Tories. A variation on the Napoleonic 'never interrupt you opponent when he is making a mistake' thing; let your opponents kick lumps out of each other, stay quiet and sneak through, whilst retaining a claim to the moral high ground 'cos you avoided the gutter. Which very nearly worked.
HYUFD posting sensible analysis as usual, he is indicative of deep worries and concerns inside the Tory camp.
I wouldn't say it is deep worries but it confirms my view that if the Tories do win again in 2023/24 it will be more a 1992 style narrow majority than a 1983 style landslide, hopes of the latter were just hubris
And your best chance of making the margin of victory as good as it can be is to remove the clown and the rest of the idiots and install a serious PM. There are going to be some serious financial decisions to be made and unpopular policies to push through. Liar is not remotely suited to the task.
"All the predictions here are that the Conservatives have won"
The truth is Galloway only needed to take a couple of thousand of votes from Labour to make it almost impossible for them to win this election.
The truth is he took an awful lot more than that.
Also, Conservative votes have gone backward in B&S in the last two elections.
Remarkably their share is lower than in 1997. Difficult to think of anywhere outside inner London where that would be true.
Obviously seats change both in name and geography, but here are the 60 seats that I can find where the Tories had a lower share of the vote in 2019 than in EDIT 1997:
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
I think it's a mistake to assume that all BXP votes from 2019 go Tory at the next election, and even if they do, the Tories may lose other votes.
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Yes but that was why Hartlepool was an outlier as the BXP got 25% there in 2019, few other Tory targets have that big a BXP vote to squeeze. The combined Tory and BXP vote in Hartlepool was over 50% even in 2019, in Batley and Spen the combined Tory and BXP vote in 2019 was only 39%
Another point worth noting. Hartlepool was to replace an MP accused of sexual misconduct with a carpetbagger. This one was to replace an MP popular enough to have won the WYorks mayor with a well-known local woman whose sister was murdered. No great wider national point, except that both of them are outliers in the grand scheme of things.
Probably worth repeating that in Hartlepool the Tory candidate was a bigger carpet bagger than the Labour candidate. At least Dr Paul Williams had worked in Pools, the Tory now MP had no connection with the place at all.
I posted this on another thread so apologies first to all those who have read this already.
First of all, congratulations to Mike and TSE for another stunning tip, some very tasty rewards for those who followed them. Also, as Mike said, thanks to @NickPalmer for his regular and very informative comments.
Having said that, I think the result is a long-term disaster for Labour for 3 reasons:
1. Galloway got 22pc of the vote. Not the 6pc Survation said nor the 5-6pc Nick said (sorry Nick...) B&S has an electorate of 75K. Assuming 16-17% of that is Muslim (a discount to the 20% mentioned because that is population, not electorate), and giving Galloway 2k+ non-Muslim votes which is generous, that still means Galloway got c 6K Muslim votes out of an electorate of c. 12K+ - that is a huge inroad into what is one of Labour's most effective voting blocs.
What he has shown there is appetite for a left wing, anti-woke / LGBTQ+ party. I know the feedback from the Labour camp was that Palestine or LGBTQ+ or anti-Seimitism was not coming up for these voters but then what explains why so many voted for Galloway? Something motivated them. Either option is scary for Labour - either it genuinely can't explain it in which it is going to be difficult to combat or (more likely) they know what did but realise that. going less woke puts their middle-class urban base at threat to the Greens (eg the 16% swing we saw in Islington last night);
2. Labour threw everything at this campaign, and I mean everything. They also had a candidate that was unique in several ways and probably would have had a significant sympathy vote. They also faced an invisible campaign from the Tory side, which was almost lethargic in its approach and where there seemed a noticeable lack of urgency. Plus Labour is in opposition and there has been recent news flow against the Govt. Yet it still only won by 323 votes. The only reason this is seen as a triumph is because of the very low expectations.
3. If you are BoJo, I think you will be pleased as punch. The result keeps SKS in place (who it is becoming more and more obvious will never revitalise Labour) but Galloway’s performance means it is very likely an anti-woke, left wing party will now emerge targeting one of Labour's last remaining loyal blocs. As a bonus, Labour’s poster with Modi will be used to the nth degree by Tories in seats with large Indian populations so you can kiss goodbye to those votes. In fact, I’m half tempted to say BJ deliberately didn’t campaign to win that seat.
One other point re Survation. My view is there are some longer term polling implications for the Labour share, namely it risks being overstated especially if Galloway fields a bank of candidates at the next GE. My gut feel is the error with Survation will lie with the Muslim vote due to language difficulties and / or reluctance to say they would vote for Galloway. If that is the case, Labour's possible vote share may be overstated
HYUFD posting sensible analysis as usual, he is indicative of deep worries and concerns inside the Tory camp.
I wouldn't say it is deep worries but it confirms my view that if the Tories do win again in 2023/24 it will be more a 1992 style narrow majority than a 1983 style landslide, hopes of the latter were just hubris
And your best chance of making the margin of victory as good as it can be is to remove the clown and the rest of the idiots and install a serious PM. There are going to be some serious financial decisions to be made and unpopular policies to push through. Liar is not remotely suited to the task.
It is only thanks to Boris the Tories have a majority of 80.
You may not like his style of government but there is no doubt Boris is the biggest Tory votewinner since Thatcher, especially amongst the white working class.
Removing Boris would be as counterproductive for the Tories as it was when they toppled Thatcher and it was for Labour when Blair went.
Post Thatcher the Tories only won 1 of the next 4 general elections and post Blair Labour still have not won 4 general elections later
Apologies if this has already been said, but I think (albeit looking on from afar) that one of the key points about Labour's better-than-expected performance is that they do seem to have got their act together in organisational terms for this by-election. That suggests that the recent personnel changes have brought a more professional approach. That's potentially very good news for the party.
Of course the strategic challenges facing Labour remain severe.
I think it's a risky strategy for the Tories to blame Hancock for the defeat last night, because it draws attention to the PM's role in the 'scandal'. Hancock went a week ago, but the PM who refused to sack him and declared that the matter was closed is still there. Blaming Hancock could shift the narrative to blaming BJ for his lack of decisive action, a narrative that I think has had traction. Hancock's gross hypocrisy in breaking his own rules was exacerbated by the PM's indecision in dealing with it.
“ PM's indecision in dealing with it.”
Not how I heard it. Boris realised he had to go as soon as he found out about it same as we did reading the papers, and sacked him on the spot, which is the right haste to move in pandemic, putting country before party.
I guess he had stern word with his whips, why do I have to find out first from the front pages not you.
Comments
Maybe the redundant pilots could retrain as lorry drivers? There’s probably quite a few doing just that at the moment. The skillset is remarkably similar.
EDIT: In the modern era. Possibly there were cases pre-universal suffrage and in the era of rotten boroughs when there were simply so few voters someone might not have got a single vote. Not sure.
BRISTOL WEST, 32.8%, 11.7%, -21.2 pp
BIRMINGHAM, HALL GREEN, 33.4%, 13.9%, -19.4 pp
BRADFORD WEST, 33.0%, 15.2%, -17.9 pp
NORTH EAST FIFE, 26.5%, 13.0%, -13.5 pp
EDINBURGH WEST, 28.0%, 17.0%, -11.0 pp
HORNSEY & WOOD GREEN, 21.9%, 11.2%, -10.8 pp
CAMBRIDGE, 25.9%, 15.5%, -10.4 pp
BETHNAL GREEN & BOW, 21.1%, 10.8%, -10.3 pp
LEEDS NORTH EAST, 33.9%, 23.6%, -10.2 pp
BRIGHTON, PAVILION, 27.7%, 17.5%, -10.1 pp
BIRMINGHAM, HODGE HILL, 24.0%, 15.0%, -9.0 pp
MANCHESTER, WITHINGTON, 19.4%, 11.0%, -8.4 pp
HOVE, 36.4%, 28.1%, -8.3 pp
WALTHAMSTOW, 20.3%, 12.3%, -8.1 pp
DULWICH & WEST NORWOOD, 24.2%, 16.4%, -7.8 pp
CITIES OF LONDON & WESTMINSTER, 47.3%, 39.9%, -7.4 pp
SHEFFIELD, HALLAM, 33.1%, 25.8%, -7.3 pp
CROYDON NORTH, 27.2%, 21.3%, -5.9 pp
STREATHAM, 21.7%, 16.0%, -5.7 pp
LEEDS NORTH WEST, 32.1%, 26.8%, -5.3 pp
HACKNEY NORTH & STOKE NEWINGTON, 16.9%, 11.9%, -5.0 pp
EDMONTON, 30.2%, 25.3%, -4.9 pp
HARROW WEST, 39.2%, 34.3%, -4.9 pp
EDINBURGH SOUTH, 21.3%, 16.4%, -4.9 pp
MITCHAM & MORDEN, 29.7%, 25.1%, -4.6 pp
LEWISHAM EAST, 25.9%, 21.5%, -4.4 pp
LEYTON & WANSTEAD, 22.2%, 18.0%, -4.2 pp
TOTTENHAM, 15.7%, 11.6%, -4.1 pp
BRIGHTON, KEMPTOWN, 38.9%, 35.0%, -3.9 pp
BRENT NORTH, 40.1%, 36.3%, -3.8 pp
TWICKENHAM, 37.8%, 34.2%, -3.6 pp
BATTERSEA, 39.4%, 36.1%, -3.4 pp
PUTNEY, 38.9%, 35.7%, -3.2 pp
STRETFORD & URMSTON, 30.5%, 27.5%, -3.0 pp
ISLINGTON NORTH, 12.9%, 10.2%, -2.7 pp
KINGSTON & SURBITON, 36.6%, 33.9%, -2.7 pp
NOTTINGHAM EAST, 23.5%, 20.9%, -2.6 pp
HACKNEY SOUTH & SHOREDITCH, 13.3%, 10.8%, -2.5 pp
ORKNEY & SHETLAND, 12.2%, 9.9%, -2.4 pp
HOLBORN & ST PANCRAS, 17.9%, 15.6%, -2.3 pp
MANCHESTER, GORTON, 11.7%, 9.5%, -2.2 pp
BIRKENHEAD, 15.2%, 13.1%, -2.1 pp
ENFIELD, SOUTHGATE, 41.1%, 39.1%, -2.1 pp
BIRMINGHAM, LADYWOOD, 13.3%, 11.3%, -2.0 pp
LEICESTER SOUTH, 23.7%, 21.8%, -1.9 pp
BIRMINGHAM, EDGBASTON, 38.6%, 36.9%, -1.7 pp
LIVERPOOL, RIVERSIDE, 9.5%, 7.8%, -1.7 pp
OXFORD EAST, 22.0%, 20.9%, -1.1 pp
LIVERPOOL, WAVERTREE, 10.8%, 9.7%, -1.0 pp
LUTON NORTH, 34.3%, 33.5%, -0.8 pp
DUNDEE WEST, 13.2%, 12.4%, -0.8 pp
ILFORD NORTH, 40.8%, 40.1%, -0.6 pp
BLACKBURN, 24.6%, 24.0%, -0.6 pp
HUNTINGDON, 55.3%, 54.8%, -0.5 pp
WOKINGHAM, 50.1%, 49.6%, -0.5 pp
ESHER & WALTON, 49.8%, 49.4%, -0.5 pp
EAST HAM, 16.1%, 15.6%, -0.5 pp
LUTON SOUTH, 31.4%, 31.0%, -0.4 pp
BATLEY & SPEN, 36.4%, 36.0%, -0.3 pp
CAMBERWELL & PECKHAM, 11.6%, 11.5%, -0.1 pp
Batley and Spen really does stand out in terms of being "that kind of seat", albeit right at the end of the list.
One rather obvious, if exceptionally difficult, episode makes it clear that this is the exact opposite of her skill set. Even her time in the Home Office seemed to be very much apart from the rest of Cameron's government. She represented a chunk of the Conservative party that Cameron had to get onside so he left her alone but a team player she wasn't.
Oh, you mean your surname.
(I got schoolboy jokes about my surname too).
‘Galloway got involved because he wanted to take just enough votes off Labour for the Conservatives to win. The Corbyn-nostalgic Labour hard-left all-but got behind him so that this loss would destroy Starmer’s leadership. And the Tories did little to challenge him because they thought they would benefit from his involvement.
‘This was a de-facto informal electoral alliance between Galloway, the Labour hard-left and the Conservative party. Only the most foolhardy and politically illiterate of them were foolish enough to explicitly voice support for him, of course. Instead, they were notable by their silence, by their failure to condemn what he brought to that constituency.’
https://www.politics.co.uk/week-in-review/2021/07/02/batley-and-spen-decency-wins/
Oh you mean new Philadelphia in the colonies.
I mean, I don't know if she actually is interested. But I can see why she might be (it's a better job than pootling around Berkshire dealing with pavements and potholes at the fag end of your career), and why she'd have a good shot at getting it.
MANSFIELD, 21.2%, 63.9%, 42.7 pp
CANNOCK CHASE, 27.2%, 68.3%, 41.1 pp
STOKE-ON-TRENT SOUTH, 22.4%, 62.2%, 39.8 pp
DUDLEY SOUTH, 29.4%, 67.9%, 38.5 pp
CASTLE POINT, 40.1%, 76.7%, 36.6 pp
WALSALL NORTH, 27.5%, 63.8%, 36.3 pp
CLEETHORPES, 33.4%, 69.0%, 35.5 pp
BRIGG & GOOLE, 36.5%, 71.3%, 34.7 pp
NORTH WARWICKSHIRE, 31.2%, 65.9%, 34.7 pp
BOSTON & SKEGNESS, 42.4%, 76.7%, 34.3 pp
BISHOP AUCKLAND, 20.2%, 53.7%, 33.5 pp
NORTH EAST DERBYSHIRE, 25.2%, 58.7%, 33.5 pp
BERWICK-UPON-TWEED, 24.1%, 56.9%, 32.8 pp
GREAT GRIMSBY, 22.1%, 54.9%, 32.8 pp
MONTGOMERYSHIRE, 26.1%, 58.5%, 32.4 pp
TELFORD, 27.4%, 59.7%, 32.3 pp
STOKE-ON-TRENT NORTH, 20.2%, 52.3%, 32.1 pp
SHERWOOD, 28.8%, 60.8%, 32.0 pp
STAFFORDSHIRE MOORLANDS, 32.5%, 64.6%, 32.0 pp
NORTH WEST LEICESTERSHIRE, 31.0%, 62.8%, 31.8 pp
Morris or anything sounding like Morris is nothing like my name.
Actually, many long-haul pilots I know had a ‘second job’ even before the pandemic, usually in the trades. Having a job that’s legally restricted to 900 hours a year, leaves you with an awful lot of free time.
You don't get the Tories to stop doing all the Bad Things by voting Tory.
On nomination papers, that's true although it's really common for people to nominate someone without voting for them for paper or minor candidates. If someone approached you in the street to ask you to sign a nomination paper for "Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket", would you do it? Probably, if they were polite about it, I'd have thought.
As for the past half century what I've said for a while, and I stand by even if he's lost my support, is that Boris is in the top 3 most consequential post-war PMs*. They are for me in order: Thatcher, Attlee and Boris. So yes past half century would be Thatcher and Boris. Who would you put in your list and why?
Just because he's consequential doesn't mean I have to agree with, or support him. I wouldn't have supported Attlee, I think the country was definitely worse for him having been PM, but he was undoubtedly consequential for setting up the welfare state even if much of it was a disaster that led to decades of the UK falling behind our continental neighbours until Thatcher fixed the mistakes of the postwar consensus.
* I'm excluding from this list Churchill for the fact that his great legacies were achieved during the war and not post war.
It looks to me like a lot of Tories stayed home.
The “Tory + Heavy Woolens + Brexit” vote declined from 51.2% to 35%, and whole some of those Heavy Woolens went to Galloway, I doubt this was more than 5% of the total vote.
That vote helped contribute to the downfall of May and the expulsion of Farage from the European Parliament. Two birds, one stone.
I would never vote UKIP, since they were racist.
You only have to look at the grief @isam gets on here from some people when he points this out.
I don't blame the Tories for keeping quiet. And I doubt they're all that bothered to have lost.
BUT... she is the ex-PM (albeit an undistinguished one) of a nuclear power and Security Council permanent member. That does, in reality, give her a status and gravitas in the wider world that she can lend to NATO as an organisation. Her flaws need to be managed, but she's not some kind of King Ralph figure, comically ill-suited to that sort of position. Of the people who might be interested in the job, she's got quite a bit in her favour, as well as arguments against.
Confectionery giant Haribo has warned a shortage of lorry drivers is causing difficulties getting its sweets to shops in the UK https://trib.al/1iMTUNP
Maybe they need to up their prices?
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
The Labour hold and the LD gain in Chesham means the Tories will be playing defence not offence next time to stay in power
@OzKaterji
A lot has been said about Batley and Spen, including by me, but not enough has focused on how the Tories just basically sat back and watched Galloway pump poison into the race so they could win. Cynical, cowardly, and they were rightfully beaten by an outstanding candidate.
Kudos to you.
mistaken for a surname
mispronounced
misspelled
Usually try to good-naturedly put up with it and politely correct except when someone insists that I am wrong.
Which irritates the hell out of me!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/batley-and-spen-byelection-kim-leadbeater-hancock-blamed-tory-defeat-b943804.html
But to ignore the BXP vote altogether when analysing the relative difficulty of various seats, is in my opinion very foolish.
Say Turkey was invaded by Russia. Technically that should trigger Art 5, but due to their err... less than stellar behaviour recently Biden might not want to commit. There's going to be no better figure for saying "Nothing has changed" than May whilst some face saving fudge is found.
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1410911849290285058
*Why bother to vote in a by-election when the government has a safe majority?
- To stick it to the government
- To stick it to the party that previously had the MP (particularly if there was scandal involved)
- Through a sense of duty to vote and/or tribal party loyalty
- Personal vote for a candidate/support on a local issue
This is a good result for Labour (particularly with Galloway involved) but it doesn't necessarily hold big lessons for the country - or even this constituency - in the future. What it might do is change the narrative around Starmer and Labour, more positive stories might give a bit of a poll boost.
In my defence, I didn’t realise that he would wear the suit and I think fathers rights is an important topic.
It's quite clever to hype up shortages as it gets free advertising on the news.
That dating agency giving all its staff a week off recently was genius as it got them loads of free advertising.
Probably enough to make the difference.
How many stayed at home because not a great effort was made to get them out.
We had anecdotal evidence on here and elsewhere of it.
This is the second consecutive by election where the Tory campaign has been lethargic, bordering on comatose.
Edit: I think Stephenson will be disappointed, apparently he's mad-keen to get into parliament.
Amanda Milling appears unwilling to discuss an investigation into the former health secretary's conduct - or even say whether there is one.
Read more 👉 https://trib.al/i0choiW https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1410908609429467138/video/1
Giving T May a run in the cringe stakes with that.
This one was to replace an MP popular enough to have won the WYorks mayor with a well-known local woman whose sister was murdered.
No great wider national point, except that both of them are outliers in the grand scheme of things.
Two Army veterans facing murder charges from the Northern Ireland Troubles, including on Bloody Sunday in 1972, will now not face trial.
The cases involve individuals known as Soldier F and Soldier B.
Is the story the first lines of a foreword to Boris has a Remainia problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEoga12_PiU
First of all, congratulations to Mike and TSE for another stunning tip, some very tasty rewards for those who followed them. Also, as Mike said, thanks to @NickPalmer for his regular and very informative comments.
Having said that, I think the result is a long-term disaster for Labour for 3 reasons:
1. Galloway got 22pc of the vote. Not the 6pc Survation said nor the 5-6pc Nick said (sorry Nick...) B&S has an electorate of 75K. Assuming 16-17% of that is Muslim (a discount to the 20% mentioned because that is population, not electorate), and giving Galloway 2k+ non-Muslim votes which is generous, that still means Galloway got c 6K Muslim votes out of an electorate of c. 12K+ - that is a huge inroad into what is one of Labour's most effective voting blocs.
What he has shown there is appetite for a left wing, anti-woke / LGBTQ+ party. I know the feedback from the Labour camp was that Palestine or LGBTQ+ or anti-Seimitism was not coming up for these voters but then what explains why so many voted for Galloway? Something motivated them. Either option is scary for Labour - either it genuinely can't explain it in which it is going to be difficult to combat or (more likely) they know what did but realise that. going less woke puts their middle-class urban base at threat to the Greens (eg the 16% swing we saw in Islington last night);
2. Labour threw everything at this campaign, and I mean everything. They also had a candidate that was unique in several ways and probably would have had a significant sympathy vote. They also faced an invisible campaign from the Tory side, which was almost lethargic in its approach and where there seemed a noticeable lack of urgency. Plus Labour is in opposition and there has been recent news flow against the Govt. Yet it still only won by 323 votes. The only reason this is seen as a triumph is because of the very low expectations.
3. If you are BoJo, I think you will be pleased as punch. The result keeps SKS in place (who it is becoming more and more obvious will never revitalise Labour) but Galloway’s performance means it is very likely an anti-woke, left wing party will now emerge targeting one of Labour's last remaining loyal blocs. As a bonus, Labour’s poster with Modi will be used to the nth degree by Tories in seats with large Indian populations so you can kiss goodbye to those votes. In fact, I’m half tempted to say BJ deliberately didn’t campaign to win that seat.
One other point re Survation. My view is there are some longer term polling implications for the Labour share, namely it risks being overstated especially if Galloway fields a bank of candidates at the next GE. My gut feel is the error with Survation will lie with the Muslim vote due to language difficulties and / or reluctance to say they would vote for Galloway. If that is the case, Labour's possible vote share may be overstated
You may not like his style of government but there is no doubt Boris is the biggest Tory votewinner since Thatcher, especially amongst the white working class.
Removing Boris would be as counterproductive for the Tories as it was when they toppled Thatcher and it was for Labour when Blair went.
Post Thatcher the Tories only won 1 of the next 4 general elections and post Blair Labour still have not won 4 general elections later
Of course the strategic challenges facing Labour remain severe.
Not how I heard it. Boris realised he had to go as soon as he found out about it same as we did reading the papers, and sacked him on the spot, which is the right haste to move in pandemic, putting country before party.
I guess he had stern word with his whips, why do I have to find out first from the front pages not you.