No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
If Reform’s rise wasn’t bad enough for the Tories they also had to watch the Lib Dems continue their serene progress through the prosperous south, winning control of Shropshire, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Back in May 2022 I wrote that the Conservatives’ attempts at post-Brexit realignment left them at serious risk of being pincered, as their newfound supporters would feel increasingly economically insecure, while younger professionals would see them as increasingly irrelevant and unpleasant. We’ve been watching that play out ever since and yesterday those pincers snapped shut.
He's hardly saying anything that we haven't discussed here for years. The tory party vote in the centre is being pulled towards the Lib Dems / Labour as the party pivots towards the right. But its not pivoted to the right far enough to avoid losing right wing former tories to Reform.
It's basically in a no mans land hat was created by Brexit but hidden when Bozo lead the party to deliver Brexit.
Brexit then failed to deliver the benefits and the Tories lost all its historic reputation for competency and the economy so voters have decided the Tories are no longer a party with a prospect of power.
And a party that hasn't the prospect of power and is clearly not a protest party is a party that has no purpose so will die.
A saving grace, some ministers believe, is that the Greens are underperforming. “I think we are extraordinarily fortunate that the Green party are shit,” one minister said. “If they had any kind of charismatic or populist leadership we’d be eight to 10 points further down the polls. I would still believe we could squeeze that vote if it came to it, but we should be aware that they may be voters who simply will not turn out for us.”
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
The Coop loyalty card makes you a member. You obviously say yes to the loyalty card, it’s a good one, and then you get sporadic emails saying you can vote on stuff.
I remember my mother had a little book of stamps from the Coop back in the day. I guess it was like an early loyalty card - once you filled up the book, you could 'spend' your stamps. Wouldn't surprise me if it also counted you as a member. So there would be a whole load of people across generations.
A Permanent Injunction by Beryl Howell - a senior federal judge in Washington DC, to stop Trump assaulting and extorting law firms, in a summary decision. I think this is the first permanent injunction I have seen. This can now be appealed.
Some good classical references, including a comparison in principle of Trump to Shakespeare's "Kill all the lawyers" protagonist. And also a reference to the John Adams "Boston Massacre" case from 1770 wrt the right to representation, where Adams defended British soldiers.
It's fun being a lib Dem. Voting for the lesser of two evils was always an easy choice but now Reform have turned up it's necessary to become more proactive.
There's only one party that wants to Rejoin give Trump a kicking and treat Israel as the brutal aparteid state they are. They're also to the left of labour and a real alternative to Farage's Fascists
The Future's Bright. The Future's Orange
I don’t know if this will cheer you - probably not - but I agree. The UK might be better off if the LDs and Reform become the two big parties. That’s a very clear distinction, as you say: it’s a real choice. No more uniparty nonsense
Also, neither Labour or the Tories deserve to survive. They’re done. They’ve both screwed up too often. Too many lies and failures, too many frauds and shysters. They have no obvious talent and no obvious purpose
Sometimes venerable institutions that have existed forever - apparently - come to a natural end. It’s surprising when it happens but it happens and that’s Lab and Con now
Leon and Roger in agreement! Is this the end of days? Or the dawn of Utopia?
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
That wasn't my point. Local Elections are different, the likes of the Lib Dems and Greens always get a higher vote share than they do in GEs. However, I don't think the amount of wards they picked up was exacerbated, as the modelling showed they were a long way ahead of all the other parties, so you are going to win lots of seats.
If Reform’s rise wasn’t bad enough for the Tories they also had to watch the Lib Dems continue their serene progress through the prosperous south, winning control of Shropshire, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Back in May 2022 I wrote that the Conservatives’ attempts at post-Brexit realignment left them at serious risk of being pincered, as their newfound supporters would feel increasingly economically insecure, while younger professionals would see them as increasingly irrelevant and unpleasant. We’ve been watching that play out ever since and yesterday those pincers snapped shut.
He's hardly saying anything that we haven't discussed here for years. The tory party vote in the centre is being pulled towards the Lib Dems / Labour as the party pivots towards the right. But its not pivoted to the right far enough to avoid losing right wing former tories to Reform.
It's basically in a no mans land hat was created by Brexit but hidden when Bozo lead the party to deliver Brexit.
Brexit then failed to deliver the benefits and the Tories lost all its historic reputation for competency and the economy so voters have decided the Tories are no longer a party with a prospect of power.
And a party that hasn't the prospect of power and is clearly not a protest party is a party that has no purpose so will die.
And as I have said before, it is a mistake to think that the success of “Get Brexit Done” meant that people wanted Brexit done. What they actually wanted was the governmental chaos to end so that it could get back to doing all the other things it had promised - none of which it actually did even once Brexit was (supposedly) ‘done’….
Based on the elections taking place within the last week, it seems that parties on the left that stand up and pick a fight with Trump are reaping the electoral benefits, while the one which chose to bend the knee to try and appease him isn't.
Partly true but I don't think that the Trump issue was a big factor in electing local councillors, which doesn't not mean that Farage being a Trump fanboy is irrelevant.
Come a GE if the prospect of a Farage government is still on the cards I think the voters will draw back from having the country run by a Trump/Putin sock puppet as we saw in Canada and, hopefully, in Australia.
Reforms 25% core vote is pro-trump, the other 75% of other party supporters loathe him to varying degrees. I can't see how that gets you a majority under FPTP
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
A striking number of the best places to live in are constitutional monarchies.
On bin collections, do we think Labour would have lost control of Birmingham City Council had there been elections there on Thursday?
Sorting out the Brum bins would have been an interesting early insight into Reform's ability to govern. Or not.
Oh, I wasn't thinking that Reform would have won the council! They could have ended up with a right old hotchpotch of councillors.
Do Brum still do thirds? No chance of Reform winning it outright anyway. Just more a thought exercise on how Reform would face down unions who will want to do them no political favours. They won't, is my guess.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
A striking number of the best places to live in are constitutional monarchies.
Because it correlates with continuity of government and reform, over the last couple of centuries.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William were/are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour. Harry and Meghan are definitely woke Labour or Democrats now they live in the US.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
What would be interesting to know is what percentage of the new Reform intake are really former Tory (or other parties) Councillors.
A lot of this Reform intake were paper candidates and the more thoughtful ones will be waking up today with a hangover and a feeling of foreboding.
If that is true, there will be many fun and games ahead.
Although what is mildly interesting is how sparse a social media presence the winning candidates nearest me have. Suggests the candidate gate-keeping process in Reform has tightened up a lot.
The Hope Not Hate digging didn't pull up that much. It was a handful of candidates with dodgy tweets some of which were 10 years ago.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
Our Royal Family are in no credible position to be anti-German!
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
The Coop loyalty card makes you a member. You obviously say yes to the loyalty card, it’s a good one, and then you get sporadic emails saying you can vote on stuff.
I remember my mother had a little book of stamps from the Coop back in the day. I guess it was like an early loyalty card - once you filled up the book, you could 'spend' your stamps. Wouldn't surprise me if it also counted you as a member. So there would be a whole load of people across generations.
When I was a kid you had a number, not a card (I can still remember our family's coop number 40 years on), and you had to go and collect your "dividend" from the main coop in town once a year or so.
There are a lot of individual coops under the national umbrella and branding, though -- my card that works in the shops in Cambridge isn't the same as the one for the "East of England" coops down in Suffolk, for instance. So I'm not sure if they have a single "membership database", or lots of fragmented ones.
First votes in from Australia and biggest gainers so far are the far right One Nation who are up 2% on the last election on the primary vote. Labor fractionally up on primary vote too up 1% and Coalition down 3%
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
A striking number of the best places to live in are constitutional monarchies.
Because it correlates with continuity of government and reform, over the last couple of centuries.
I mean Switzerland and Finnland are up there in the list of best countries to live in and have never really been monarchies. I don't think they would become better places if they adopted monarchies.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
Our Royal Family are in no credible position to be anti-German!
They did get their house bombed by the Luftwaffe though...
Based on the elections taking place within the last week, it seems that parties on the left that stand up and pick a fight with Trump are reaping the electoral benefits, while the one which chose to bend the knee to try and appease him isn't.
Yes as Kent and Derbyshire county councillors can make a massive difference to the UK US relationship and send a terrifying message to Trump!
Which would be about as effective as your military threats to Scotland!
The UK government at least controls the military unlike county council leaders
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Reform and the LDs opposed the IHT changes and the VAT on school fees as well as the WFA cut and both were the biggest gainers on Thursday
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William were/are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour. Harry and Meghan are definitely woke Labour or Democrats now they live in the US.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
First votes in from Australia and biggest gainers so far are the far right One Nation who are up 2% on the last election on the primary vote. Labor fractionally up on primary vote too up 1% and Coalition down 3%
William Bowe at the Pollbludger site has a model where he uses the results for individual polling booths to project the overall expected numbers: https://pollbludger.net/fed2025/Results/
Currently, his model is projecting a 0.7% swing to Labor.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
Our Royal Family are in no credible position to be anti-German!
The Queen Mother was half Scottish and half English, her husband had German blood, she didn't
First votes in from Australia and biggest gainers so far are the far right One Nation who are up 2% on the last election on the primary vote. Labor fractionally up on primary vote too up 1% and Coalition down 3%
William Bowe at the Pollbludger site has a model where he uses the results for individual polling booths to project the overall expected numbers: https://pollbludger.net/fed2025/Results/
Currently, his model is projecting a 0.7% swing to Labor.
Though if One Nation preferences go more strongly for the Coalition than last time that could make a slight swing the other way, we will see
Based on the elections taking place within the last week, it seems that parties on the left that stand up and pick a fight with Trump are reaping the electoral benefits, while the one which chose to bend the knee to try and appease him isn't.
Yes as Kent and Derbyshire county councillors can make a massive difference to the UK US relationship and send a terrifying message to Trump!
Which would be about as effective as your military threats to Scotland!
The UK government at least controls the military unlike county council leaders
Epping Parish Council, on the other hand, doesn’t!
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
I expect that at local level, quite a few Conservative council groups will be absorbed into Reform.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
Old jokes revisited:
NIGEL: Our new alliance needs a name to bring our two parties together. I suggest we include the word "Reform" from mine. KEMI/BOB: And from mine? NIGEL: "Party".
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
Indeed, on Thursday's voteshares Farage would become PM and Reform win an overall majority anyway so he wouldn't need any deal with the Tories.
As I said Starmer's best hope for re election now as long as we keep FPTP is probably for Jenrick to replace Badenoch and win back 2024 Tory voters who have leaked to Reform. Then the split on the right again gives him a chance of staying in power with Labour and the LDs despite still lower Labour voteshare
At least we can watch the Australian election results come out at a respectable time . Reform avoided the Trump Kryptonite but the Liberals in Australia look like they won’t be so lucky .
Probably more to do with the (lack of quality) of the candidate than any contamination from the Trump miasma. Based on superficial knowledge, which is all I have, who the fuck sees appeal in PeDu? Dorky, ex-copper, royalist, xtian, hater of workers' rights, environmental despoiler, reliable slurper of the Israeli cock and nuclear power enthusiast. There's something for a wide variety of voters to hate in there. He is also diabolically ugly which, in this visual age, matters. He has curiously peristeronic features smeared, apparently at random, across a head that resembles an irradiated testicle.
Never seen an irradiated testicle, but I see what you mean. Not really getting the pigeon bits.
The question is not whether Reform councils will be inept. Let's be honest, that wouldn't be a Reform-specific outcome.
The question is whether Reform councils will be colourfully inept. (in a way that would make the news / social media)
This notion that the Fukkers will balls everything up at a local level and thus be found out is ludicrous. First, all local government balls up everything all the time. Second, they will opportunistically weaponise the failure and blame woke/immigrants/the Labour government. After all, their diagnosis on the unqualified failure of brexit is to have more brexit.
It's fun being a lib Dem. Voting for the lesser of two evils was always an easy choice but now Reform have turned up it's necessary to become more proactive.
There's only one party that wants to Rejoin give Trump a kicking and treat Israel as the brutal aparteid state they are. They're also to the left of labour and a real alternative to Farage's Fascists
The Future's Bright. The Future's Orange
I don’t know if this will cheer you - probably not - but I agree. The UK might be better off if the LDs and Reform become the two big parties. That’s a very clear distinction, as you say: it’s a real choice. No more uniparty nonsense
Also, neither Labour or the Tories deserve to survive. They’re done. They’ve both screwed up too often. Too many lies and failures, too many frauds and shysters. They have no obvious talent and no obvious purpose
Sometimes venerable institutions that have existed forever - apparently - come to a natural end. It’s surprising when it happens but it happens and that’s Lab and Con now
Leon and Roger in agreement! Is this the end of days? Or the dawn of Utopia?
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
My current thoughts on the Tory/Reform psychodrama:
1. It doesn't suit Farage to form any kind of alliance with the Tory Party. If the Tories had more stubbornly clung on in more affluent areas or Lincolnshire/South West rural strongholds, then maybe. But Farage has shown, aside from a couple of places like Bucks, that Reform can win seats across the country. He is in the ascendent. He doesn't need them.
2. What Farage does need, is an extra 5-10% of the vote, to push him into the mid-to-high 30s and traditional FPTP election-winning territory. There are lots of ways that he could try and get it, but I think Reform's best shot is to hope it comes to them organically. The first way is through hoping Labour continue to be perceived to fail. The second is to hope that a good chunk of the core Tory vote moves over to them now. I think that is entirely plausible - people like to back winners, and if you're a voter "of the right" who has always voted Tory and wants to remove a Labour government, do you really stay with a dwindling party or do you move with the direction of travel? I take the point that the Tory vote is not homogenous, and there's plenty of centre right voters to whom a Reform vote is anathema, but I think that proportion is not as high as some would expect. Some of the results this week bore that out.
3. There will be some Tory MPs who will be really weighing up their positions now. If Farage can get a few more defections in the coming weeks that will help with that perception in 2. that Tory voters can move to Reform. I actually think he is best served with some fairly nondescript, or even relatively centrist, Tories defecting. I am not convinced that getting someone like Braverman, with all her baggage, will do much good to his brand.
4. The Tories are not well-served by a Reform tie-up either. It will just make their cannibalisation inevitable. I think their only hope is that in time, Reform will slip up and support will wane, and people will come back. But I suspect they are really at the mercy of events now.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
A striking number of the best places to live in are constitutional monarchies.
S Korea keeps making TV dramas where they still have a royal family. Possibly because the monarchy was overthrown by the Japanese colonialists.
As the west moves right you can expect support for the monarchy to stubbornly endure, and even rise
European monarchies - especially the UK’s - are a source of Western European pride, culture and identity. And they are Christian. All these things are becoming more valued as they seem increasingly threatened (ironically we have a very Woke king - but it’s the institution not the individual that matters)
Time and again we’ve seen this in actual votes. The Irish rejecting woke bollocks in referendums. New Zealanders voting to retain the Union Jack
And so on
I agree, the Monarchy in this country and the Commonwealth realms is, surprisingly, secure. I don't agree that the King is 'very Woke'. A LibDem at most but probably more along the lines of his friend Nick Soames (who I think is still a Tory).
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
If he could vote the King would almost certainly vote LD (maybe Green sometimes locally too), whereas Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William were/are basically One Nation Tories, William a cross between that and New Labour. Harry and Meghan are definitely woke Labour or Democrats now they live in the US.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
Harry and Meghan would vote TUSC or Galloway.
They wouldn't, Meghan for starters is far too money obsessed and Harry too pro military to vote for either.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
It's pretty simple - VAT on school fees only affects a small number of some of the richest families in country (despite what PB would have you believe). IHT was on land owners (not farmers) with considerable net assets.
WFP was on a prime voting demographic - pensioners on a reasonable income. People expect Labour to be the party of the freebies, so it harmed the brand in the same way immigration did for the Tories. The caveat is a lot of the people whining about WFP are highly unlikely to vote Labour anyway (pensioners, outright owners), so I suspect it's not as big an issue as suggested.
I don't think PIP was that big a deal, though I wonder if a surprising proportion of claimants are actually Reform voters.
My instinct is you have extreme levels of apathy among Labour voters because government haven't actually done anything interesting yet, and that's what's driven the result for them.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
Based on the elections taking place within the last week, it seems that parties on the left that stand up and pick a fight with Trump are reaping the electoral benefits, while the one which chose to bend the knee to try and appease him isn't.
Partly true but I don't think that the Trump issue was a big factor in electing local councillors, which doesn't not mean that Farage being a Trump fanboy is irrelevant.
Come a GE if the prospect of a Farage government is still on the cards I think the voters will draw back from having the country run by a Trump/Putin sock puppet as we saw in Canada and, hopefully, in Australia.
Reforms 25% core vote is pro-trump, the other 75% of other party supporters loathe him to varying degrees. I can't see how that gets you a majority under FPTP
It’s true that local/by elections are very different things to the main event, but the story here is the collapse of the Tories.
If that ends up in complete obliteration, then I wouldn’t be confident of Reform being held back by Farage’s fondness of Trump. He’s a far more slippery (in the non stick sense) politician than Poilievre or testicle head.
I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Reform council, a Reform council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
The question is not whether Reform councils will be inept. Let's be honest, that wouldn't be a Reform-specific outcome.
The question is whether Reform councils will be colourfully inept. (in a way that would make the news / social media)
This notion that the Fukkers will balls everything up at a local level and thus be found out is ludicrous. First, all local government balls up everything all the time. Second, they will opportunistically weaponise the failure and blame woke/immigrants/the Labour government. After all, their diagnosis on the unqualified failure of brexit is to have more brexit.
And that is Mr Meeks (and my point) - Local Government is so badly run and local reporting so dire that no-one will be able to tell the difference.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
I was laughing at Starmer’s “further and faster” line on Emergency Podcast. Utterly absurd having had their arse handed to them on a plate by LLLLLLL voters that they think “keep doing what we’re doing” is the right response.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
It's quite nostalgic really. Reminds me of Boris's 'the message I take from this is that the British people want us to get on with the job'.
Of course the reality of the statement is that the British people don't want Labour to go further or faster (unless they're in a car near Beachy Head), but they are telling Labour that they're a one term thing, so the logic is that Labour must go 'further and faster' to get any sort of 'legacy' before they're consigned to the bin. That makes them more dangerous country-wreckers than they were before sadly.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Most people, with one rather notable exception, was saying those were bad policies but that they would be popular with their target groups, ie Labour voters.
The thing about the WFA is that it was a bad policy *and* it upset Labour’s voters. Same with PIP cuts.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
He doesn't but it has been his plan for over a decade. 2026 was his target date. If he still wants it he is bang on track.
It does probably bring 10% or so who will always vote Conservative if that is on the ballot, and probably loses 5-10% of ex Labour voters who will never vote Conservative. No idea how that plays out on the constituency basis which is obviously more important in our system, may be a wash.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
Possibly. Until Nige gets into Number 10
One word of caution, if he does he will do so on a massively splintered vote.
He's not going above 30% at the moment (far too marmite) so to best that Reform would have to "reform" and become a broader and less threatening coalition, and that would mean becoming more sensible on economics and foreign policy. Possibly by absorbing the Jeremy Hunts of this world.
I sense a Tory-Reform alliance is coming, formal or informal
Reform will need it for the reasons you say, to dilute Farage’s Marmite flavour. The Tories will need it for survival
Will the LDs and Labour unite similarly? Possible but less likely. Labour are in government, they will proudly reject the idea they need to ally with anyone else
Question: why does Nigel Farage need an alliance with the Tories?
Even if he doesn’t, he’ll happily accept defectors.
I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Reform council, a Reform council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
To make it work better I suggest you need to point out that the taxi drivers were Albanian and the workers natives.
I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Reform council, a Reform council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
The question is not whether Reform councils will be inept. Let's be honest, that wouldn't be a Reform-specific outcome.
The question is whether Reform councils will be colourfully inept. (in a way that would make the news / social media)
This notion that the Fukkers will balls everything up at a local level and thus be found out is ludicrous. First, all local government balls up everything all the time. Second, they will opportunistically weaponise the failure and blame woke/immigrants/the Labour government. After all, their diagnosis on the unqualified failure of brexit is to have more brexit.
And that is Mr Meeks (and my point) - Local Government is so badly run and local reporting so dire that no-one will be able to tell the difference.
A thankless task. Well done to all those who stepped up to give it a try.
I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Reform council, a Reform council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.
At least we can watch the Australian election results come out at a respectable time . Reform avoided the Trump Kryptonite but the Liberals in Australia look like they won’t be so lucky .
Probably more to do with the (lack of quality) of the candidate than any contamination from the Trump miasma. Based on superficial knowledge, which is all I have, who the fuck sees appeal in PeDu? Dorky, ex-copper, royalist, xtian, hater of workers' rights, environmental despoiler, reliable slurper of the Israeli cock and nuclear power enthusiast. There's something for a wide variety of voters to hate in there. He is also diabolically ugly which, in this visual age, matters. He has curiously peristeronic features smeared, apparently at random, across a head that resembles an irradiated testicle.
So that’s what happened to Nigel’s departed gonad.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
It's pretty simple - VAT on school fees only affects a small number of some of the richest families in country (despite what PB would have you believe). IHT was on land owners (not farmers) with considerable net assets.
WFP was on a prime voting demographic - pensioners on a reasonable income. People expect Labour to be the party of the freebies, so it harmed the brand in the same way immigration did for the Tories. The caveat is a lot of the people whining about WFP are highly unlikely to vote Labour anyway (pensioners, outright owners), so I suspect it's not as big an issue as suggested.
I don't think PIP was that big a deal, though I wonder if a surprising proportion of claimants are actually Reform voters.
My instinct is you have extreme levels of apathy among Labour voters because government haven't actually done anything interesting yet, and that's what's driven the result for them.
The government are terrible at news management, that is why they are doing so badly. They aren't great at governing either, too timid and lacking in ideas, but still better than the recent average, and the current alternatives.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
It was even bigger until the Crystal Methodist screwed up the banking part. But I believe the things like funeral service, insurance, legal are part of the Coop group.
They are, and you can become a member by holding accounts or policies from their other divisions, even if you’re not a shopper. Another reason why there are so many members.
Despite their good ethics, my practical experience is that everything non-shopping that they do is terribly managed and organised, hence customers get a poor service. Their energy was diabolical, their insurance little better. I am told their funeral service is OK but have no personal experience to offer.
Before my wife died, and when there was a local Coop store, she would do the main shop at ASDA but I would pick up "bits and pieces" as required from the Coop on my way home from work. I would diligently collect the Coop points, and my wife would tease me about the paltry £2 or so I earned every 6 months. When she died in 2011, the Coop did the funeral. When we were arranging it, they asked if I was a member and so I got points on the funeral! A few months later, the "divi" was enough to buy a bottle of whisky, each, for my son and I to toast her memory.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
Obviously they are both wrong as usual.
Labour are delivering their crap changes far too fast - about 5,000 years is the tolerable timescale for most of them.
And Labour are indeed on the wrong course, but the correction needed is the opposite of what Diane Abbott, with her usual terrible judgement, would want.
People outside Labour's core vote of 15-20% or so won't be sustainably happy with Labour until they deliver sustainable economic growth and/or cut immigration, and they can't do so and remain recognisably the Labour party, whatever counter-productive, technocratic tinkering Free Gear tries.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
Obviously they are both wrong as usual.
Labour are delivering their crap changes far too fast - about 5,000 years is the tolerable timescale for most of them.
And Labour are indeed on the wrong course, but the correction needed is the opposite of what Diane Abbott, with her usual terrible judgement, would want.
People outside Labour's core vote of 15-20% or so won't be happy with Labour until they deliver economic growth and/or cut immigration, and they can't do so and remain recognisably the Labour party.
They are already cutting immigration. At some point in the next 3 years we will get some growth, regardless of govt policies.
Looking at the MRP, I don't think the Coalition will do quite as badly as 47 seats. Around 55 is more likely.
We will see, they are in trouble in Queensland where there has been a swing to Labor and Peter Dutton's seat could be at risk but high early voting for Coalition could pull it back for him.
Independents doing well at the expense of both main parties nationwide
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
The Coop loyalty card makes you a member. You obviously say yes to the loyalty card, it’s a good one, and then you get sporadic emails saying you can vote on stuff.
As well as members' prices, you get personal discount offers. I've just selected this week's, including 20p off donuts.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
But won't it be fun watching them goose-step into the council offices
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
Apparently SKS reckons Labour aren't delivering change fast enough so they must speed up on the same course. OTOH, apparently, Diane Abbott reckons the message is that Labour are on the wrong course.
I was laughing at Starmer’s “further and faster” line on Emergency Podcast. Utterly absurd having had their arse handed to them on a plate by LLLLLLL voters that they think “keep doing what we’re doing” is the right response.
But they haven't actually done anything yet. Continuing in that way guarantees a Labour wipeout in 2029. What's the point of them?
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
You will end up with a LibDem council leader and a bunch of Reform councillors impotently contributing very little from opposition.
But won't it be fun watching them goose-step into the council offices
An acquaintance who has somewhat whacky beliefs tells me the POTUS is connected with the Last Trump, so he's expecting the end of the world fairly soon.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock
With pensions about to rise above the tax allowance I think we are about to get to the point where the triple lock can be sanely removed and replaced with tracking the standard tax allowance instead...
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
The personal allowance is unchanged in five years and you want pensions to track it?
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
Most Prime Ministers would respond to these local elections with the same old excuses.
My response is simple: I get it.
We’re moving in the right direction, but people must feel the benefits of change.
I will go further and faster to make that happen.
Trevor Philips on Sky this morning, referring to Starmers response, said that when my sat nav is sending me in the wrong direction going faster and further is not the best idea !!!!
Should the Conservatives be very worried that they are feeding in the same pond as a bunch of fat bloated racists and their very survival depends on finding the channel to another pond?
I dislike the Conservative Party with a passion but I'd hate them to be replaced by a party of racists and fascists. My fear is that might already have happened whilst I was looking away
Are you suggesting that Reform are just Conservatives without the mask?
Reform have done a good job of persuading people they will benefit from taking money/saving money from others at a rate than the numbers don't justify.
Listening to the news about the Coop hack and the BBC say that the Coop has 20 million members. I find this quite extraordinary that nearly 30% of the population, not just the adult population, are members of a shopping cooperative.
I had no idea it was such a huge organisation.
The Coop loyalty card makes you a member. You obviously say yes to the loyalty card, it’s a good one, and then you get sporadic emails saying you can vote on stuff.
As well as members' prices, you get personal discount offers. I've just selected this week's, including 20p off donuts.
And there have been a great many donuts around this week.
Comments
It's basically in a no mans land hat was created by Brexit but hidden when Bozo lead the party to deliver Brexit.
Brexit then failed to deliver the benefits and the Tories lost all its historic reputation for competency and the economy so voters have decided the Tories are no longer a party with a prospect of power.
And a party that hasn't the prospect of power and is clearly not a protest party is a party that has no purpose so will die.
A saving grace, some ministers believe, is that the Greens are underperforming. “I think we are extraordinarily fortunate that the Green party are shit,” one minister said. “If they had any kind of charismatic or populist leadership we’d be eight to 10 points further down the polls. I would still believe we could squeeze that vote if it came to it, but we should be aware that they may be voters who simply will not turn out for us.”
Some good classical references, including a comparison in principle of Trump to Shakespeare's "Kill all the lawyers" protagonist. And also a reference to the John Adams "Boston Massacre" case from 1770 wrt the right to representation, where Adams defended British soldiers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaGmTxhXJhc&t=11s
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
Come a GE if the prospect of a Farage government is still on the cards I think the voters will draw back from having the country run by a Trump/Putin sock puppet as we saw in Canada and, hopefully, in Australia.
Reforms 25% core vote is pro-trump, the other 75% of other party supporters loathe him to varying degrees. I can't see how that gets you a majority under FPTP
The ladies in his life who have been the most powerful influences on him, like the present Queen and the late Queen Mother are/were imho about as far from Woke as it is possible to be.
The Queen Mother however was a staunch Thatcher fan and got on better with Maggie than her daughter and was very anti German so would probably have gone for Farage and Reform
There are a lot of individual coops under the national umbrella and branding, though -- my card that works in the shops in Cambridge isn't the same as the one for the "East of England" coops down in Suffolk, for instance. So I'm not sure if they have a single "membership database", or lots of fragmented ones.
What is intriguing to me is that supposedly it was the inheritance tax changes that were going to kill the government. This all seems to have gone quiet and hasn’t as far as I know been brought up much in focus groups?
Perhaps it’s only relevant in some constituencies not others but I wonder if that policy was actually not as bad as some of the more alarmist people said at the time.
Likewise on VAT on school fees.
It’s the WFA cut that seems to have done the most damage - whilst I personally think this was the right move and I’d also get rid of the triple lock, I can’t not concede that just because something might be a good idea, if it kills your popularity then you won’t get re-elected to do anything else.
I don’t think Labour will change course now, though.
"Reform have overcome a huge major laboratory"
The question is not whether Reform councils will be inept. Let's be honest, that wouldn't be a Reform-specific outcome.
The question is whether Reform councils will be colourfully inept. (in a way that would make the news / social media)
https://pollbludger.net/fed2025/Results/
Currently, his model is projecting a 0.7% swing to Labor.
Now it's an incredibly creed way of removing the triple lock but it solves a whole set of very painful issues that would otherwise arise and make income tax for pensioners very easy to calculate..
NIGEL: Our new alliance needs a name to bring our two parties together. I suggest we include the word "Reform" from mine.
KEMI/BOB: And from mine?
NIGEL: "Party".
As I said Starmer's best hope for re election now as long as we keep FPTP is probably for Jenrick to replace Badenoch and win back 2024 Tory voters who have leaked to Reform. Then the split on the right again gives him a chance of staying in power with Labour and the LDs despite still lower Labour voteshare
Not really getting the pigeon bits.
The whole problem in Birmingham is they’re not getting rid of the rubbish.
Reform took most of its seats off the Conservatives, but many of those were historically Labour seats, won by the Conservatives in 2021.
1. It doesn't suit Farage to form any kind of alliance with the Tory Party. If the Tories had more stubbornly clung on in more affluent areas or Lincolnshire/South West rural strongholds, then maybe. But Farage has shown, aside from a couple of places like Bucks, that Reform can win seats across the country. He is in the ascendent. He doesn't need them.
2. What Farage does need, is an extra 5-10% of the vote, to push him into the mid-to-high 30s and traditional FPTP election-winning territory. There are lots of ways that he could try and get it, but I think Reform's best shot is to hope it comes to them organically. The first way is through hoping Labour continue to be perceived to fail. The second is to hope that a good chunk of the core Tory vote moves over to them now. I think that is entirely plausible - people like to back winners, and if you're a voter "of the right" who has always voted Tory and wants to remove a Labour government, do you really stay with a dwindling party or do you move with the direction of travel? I take the point that the Tory vote is not homogenous, and there's plenty of centre right voters to whom a Reform vote is anathema, but I think that proportion is not as high as some would expect. Some of the results this week bore that out.
3. There will be some Tory MPs who will be really weighing up their positions now. If Farage can get a few more defections in the coming weeks that will help with that perception in 2. that Tory voters can move to Reform. I actually think he is best served with some fairly nondescript, or even relatively centrist, Tories defecting. I am not convinced that getting someone like Braverman, with all her baggage, will do much good to his brand.
4. The Tories are not well-served by a Reform tie-up either. It will just make their cannibalisation inevitable. I think their only hope is that in time, Reform will slip up and support will wane, and people will come back. But I suspect they are really at the mercy of events now.
Possibly because the monarchy was overthrown by the Japanese colonialists.
If waiting for Farage and Reform to fuck up is the strategy, Labour will lose the next election and rightly so.
They need to cut immigration, stop the boats and make the average person feel better off.
They have four years to do that. Clock is ticking.
https://x.com/TiceRichard/status/1918573908871000257
Reform control the Mayoralty and County Council in Lincolnshire with myself as local MP
If you are thinking of investing in solar farms, Battery storage systems, or trying to build pylons
Think again
We will fight you every step of the way
We will win
People ask me why I’d not vote for Reform.
This is why. I don’t want another NIMBY party.
They are elitist woke left liberals
WFP was on a prime voting demographic - pensioners on a reasonable income. People expect Labour to be the party of the freebies, so it harmed the brand in the same way immigration did for the Tories. The caveat is a lot of the people whining about WFP are highly unlikely to vote Labour anyway (pensioners, outright owners), so I suspect it's not as big an issue as suggested.
I don't think PIP was that big a deal, though I wonder if a surprising proportion of claimants are actually Reform voters.
My instinct is you have extreme levels of apathy among Labour voters because government haven't actually done anything interesting yet, and that's what's driven the result for them.
Going to be an interesting return to the 1950's for Lincolnshire...
If that ends up in complete obliteration, then I wouldn’t be confident of Reform being held back by Farage’s fondness of Trump. He’s a far more slippery (in the non stick sense) politician than Poilievre or testicle head.
Of course the reality of the statement is that the British people don't want Labour to go further or faster (unless they're in a car near Beachy Head), but they are telling Labour that they're a one term thing, so the logic is that Labour must go 'further and faster' to get any sort of 'legacy' before they're consigned to the bin. That makes them more dangerous country-wreckers than they were before sadly.
The thing about the WFA is that it was a bad policy *and* it upset Labour’s voters. Same with PIP cuts.
It does probably bring 10% or so who will always vote Conservative if that is on the ballot, and probably loses 5-10% of ex Labour voters who will never vote Conservative. No idea how that plays out on the constituency basis which is obviously more important in our system, may be a wash.
‘Nigel Farage held up six fingers to indicate the scale of his victory.
On two hands obviously!’
And there are many large rodents enjoying the situation too.
Coalition 33%
Labor 29%
Greens 12%
One Nation 8%
Independents 8%
Trumpet of Patriots 3%
Others 7%
https://pollbludger.net/fed2025/Results/
Labor ahead on 2PP
I would diligently collect the Coop points, and my wife would tease me about the paltry £2 or so I earned every 6 months.
When she died in 2011, the Coop did the funeral. When we were arranging it, they asked if I was a member and so I got points on the funeral!
A few months later, the "divi" was enough to buy a bottle of whisky, each, for my son and I to toast her memory.
Labour are delivering their crap changes far too fast - about 5,000 years is the tolerable timescale for most of them.
And Labour are indeed on the wrong course, but the correction needed is the opposite of what Diane Abbott, with her usual terrible judgement, would want.
People outside Labour's core vote of 15-20% or so won't be sustainably happy with Labour until they deliver sustainable economic growth and/or cut immigration, and they can't do so and remain recognisably the Labour party, whatever counter-productive, technocratic tinkering Free Gear tries.
Independents doing well at the expense of both main parties nationwide
Fairly predictably MAGA agenda though, and a deliberate choice of name worshiping Trumpism:
https://trumpetofpatriots.org/policies/
He's been trying to do a Trump-like takeover of Australian politics for a long time but hasn't been successful.
And he says he's going to win by stopping things that are explicitly not in the control of the Council and Mayoralty Reform now control.
An interesting conundrum for Don Quixote Tice.
On a similar note, has the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire expressed a policy yet on anything that SHE can control?
There are interesting times coming in the Flatlands Northern Extension.
PS How is Greater Lincolnshire different to ... Lincolnshire ?
https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/05/miami-grand-prix-2025-pre.html
President William Henry Harrison had a better first 100 days than Trump, and he was dead for 70 of them.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1918577900397166696
Most Prime Ministers would respond to these local elections with the same old excuses.
My response is simple: I get it.
We’re moving in the right direction, but people must feel the benefits of change.
I will go further and faster to make that happen.
Perhaps we could see here The Clarinet of Conservatism, The Lyre of Labour, or The Reform Riff.
I understand migrants will be not be housed in hotels but tents
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/lincolnshires-new-reform-mayor-calls-10150365
Reform have done a good job of persuading people they will benefit from taking money/saving money from others at a rate than the numbers don't justify.