I really don’t like that Reform are going head on at the idea the election was stolen. This seems like the sort of thing I was hoping they wouldn’t just copy wholesale from Trump.
I think it's important that the concerns raised by the independent election observers are addressed, rather than lost in an argument over Reform claiming it lost them the election.
I think that’s fair however it is going to be lost because Reform have jumped straight to “Muslims lost us this”
The last two YouGov polls had the Greens 7pp behind Reform. Could winning the by-election be a big enough boost that an outlier might give the Greens the lead in a poll during March?
I’d still bet on a Labour lead at some point in the year.
Unless they change leader, I cannot see a Labour lead at all.
There is a visceral hatred of Starmer promoted by the right wing media but underwritten by his own hubris.
I see far more hatred for Starmer on the left. To the right he seems to be just seen as a failure.
That is true too. Starmer's denial of Jeremy Corbyn's genius and his direct association with the genocide of 80,000 Gazans including women and children hasn't helped. But I can't recall a PM so vilified by the media. The general disdain cements the Left's view of him as a bad actor.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
What is it these people switching to Green want?
They were promised "Change" in July 2024, but see none of that. They see a Labour Party sucking up to Trump, Israel, and the Broligarchs and taking its policies from the Daily Mail. Its not just Starmer, it is Streeting and Mahmood too.
It is a great win for Spencer and the Greens, someone willing to stand up against the racism and misogyny of Reform, and for a liberal, tolerant multicultural version of Britain.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
What is it these people switching to Green want?
They were promised "Change" in July 2024, but see none of that. They see a Labour Party sucking up to Trump, Israel, and the Broligarchs and taking its policies from the Daily Mail. Its not just Starmer, it is Streeting and Mahmood too.
It is a great win for Spencer and the Greens, someone willing to stand up against the racism and misogyny of Reform, and for a liberal, tolerant multicultural version of Britain.
On topic. Labour thrashing about with accusations of the Greens being paedos and the drug dealers’ friend went down like a pint of cold sick. As with Mamdani if you’ve got nothing attractive in your own locker, voters can see through that shite. Unfortunately we can expect more of this because they don’t know what else to do.
The Green policy on NATO is genuinely scary though.
In what sense?
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to a large change in Green Party policy on NATO. The party now no longer opposes NATO membership.
Polanski does still advocate for leaving NATO, but party policy is not determined solely by the party leader in the Greens, unlike in less democratic parties in Britain.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
On topic. Labour thrashing about with accusations of the Greens being paedos and the drug dealers’ friend went down like a pint of cold sick. As with Mamdani if you’ve got nothing attractive in your own locker, voters can see through that shite. Unfortunately we can expect more of this because they don’t know what else to do.
The Green policy on NATO is genuinely scary though.
In what sense?
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to a large change in Green Party policy on NATO. The party now no longer opposes NATO membership.
Polanski does still advocate for leaving NATO, but party policy is not determined solely by the party leader in the Greens, unlike in less democratic parties in Britain.
Push for the UK to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and following this to immediately begin the process of dismantling our nuclear weapons, cancelling the Trident programme and removing all foreign nuclear weapons from UK soil.
The Green Party recognises that NATO has an important role in ensuring the ability of its member states to respond to threats to their security. We would work within NATO to achieve: A greater focus on global peacebuilding. A commitment to a ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons.
So in effect they would make NATO useless and make our defences weaker.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
So I wake up to the election result. The Greens are loons Reform are loons and Labour are loathed and lost. I suppose Labour.losing has to be a success of aorts. The voters will pay a price for it because they dont support Green politics. They will find out soon enough.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
What is it these people switching to Green want?
They were promised "Change" in July 2024, but see none of that. They see a Labour Party sucking up to Trump, Israel, and the Broligarchs and taking its policies from the Daily Mail. Its not just Starmer, it is Streeting and Mahmood too.
It is a great win for Spencer and the Greens, someone willing to stand up against the racism and misogyny of Reform, and for a liberal, tolerant multicultural version of Britain.
Except that they’re not liberal and tolerant multiculturalists, they’re angry and divisive sectarians.
The Guardian reports of Spencer's victory speech have her striking a very left-wing economic tone, rather than talking about cultural or foreign policy issues.
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that. ... People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
In all the excitement over the election of a hard left extremists, representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies, because they weren’t a right wing extremist representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies this came out yesterday it’s interesting.
Jack Dorsey has announced 40% of white collar jobs to'go. Why ? His business, Blocks, is strong and profitable.
They’re being replaced by AI. People like @Leon got what AI meant for white collar jobs.
So I wake up to the election result. The Greens are loons Reform are loons and Labour are loathed and lost. I suppose Labour.losing has to be a success of aorts. The voters will pay a price for it because they dont support Green politics. They will find out soon enough.
Pretty much how I see it.
Those locals in inner city wards will be interesting.
On topic. Labour thrashing about with accusations of the Greens being paedos and the drug dealers’ friend went down like a pint of cold sick. As with Mamdani if you’ve got nothing attractive in your own locker, voters can see through that shite. Unfortunately we can expect more of this because they don’t know what else to do.
The Green policy on NATO is genuinely scary though.
In what sense?
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to a large change in Green Party policy on NATO. The party now no longer opposes NATO membership.
Polanski does still advocate for leaving NATO, but party policy is not determined solely by the party leader in the Greens, unlike in less democratic parties in Britain.
Push for the UK to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and following this to immediately begin the process of dismantling our nuclear weapons, cancelling the Trident programme and removing all foreign nuclear weapons from UK soil.
The Green Party recognises that NATO has an important role in ensuring the ability of its member states to respond to threats to their security. We would work within NATO to achieve: A greater focus on global peacebuilding. A commitment to a ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons.
So in effect they would make NATO useless and make our defences weaker.
The Guardian reports of Spencer's victory speech have her striking a very left-wing economic tone, rather than talking about cultural or foreign policy issues.
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that. ... People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
This is exactly the direction they should be going in.
In all the excitement over the election of a hard left extremists, representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies, because they weren’t a right wing extremist representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies this came out yesterday it’s interesting.
Jack Dorsey has announced 40% of white collar jobs to'go. Why ? His business, Blocks, is strong and profitable.
They’re being replaced by AI. People like @Leon got what AI meant for white collar jobs.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
The last two YouGov polls had the Greens 7pp behind Reform. Could winning the by-election be a big enough boost that an outlier might give the Greens the lead in a poll during March?
I’d still bet on a Labour lead at some point in the year.
Unless they change leader, I cannot see a Labour lead at all.
There is a visceral hatred of Starmer promoted by the right wing media but underwritten by his own hubris.
I see far more hatred for Starmer on the left. To the right he seems to be just seen as a failure.
That is true too. Starmer's denial of Jeremy Corbyn's genius and his direct association with the genocide of 80,000 Gazans including women and children hasn't helped. But I can't recall a PM so vilified by the media. The general disdain cements the Left's view of him as a bad actor.
You don’t remember the 80s? Or even 1997?
Or even Truss?
I don’t think the Greens won because of the Daily Mail, either.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Rayner? An actual criminal. Have we gone mad?
Rayner - I don’t think screwing up a tax form is a criminal offence - her only problem was to not take very expensive legal advice which should have said wait x months to avoid a £40,000 tax bill that will be repayable after those x months
In all the excitement over the election of a hard left extremists, representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies, because they weren’t a right wing extremist representing a party with dangerous and stupid policies this came out yesterday it’s interesting.
Jack Dorsey has announced 40% of white collar jobs to'go. Why ? His business, Blocks, is strong and profitable.
They’re being replaced by AI. People like @Leon got what AI meant for white collar jobs.
What dangerous and stupid policies do Reform have?
Their policy on public sector pensions, for example, is Stupid. Seizing it for a sovereign wealth fund with some airy fairy promise of better returns. From what Tice said it’s Woodford on steroids. He’s also not in a position to guarantee better returns,
Who’s on the hook when it goes wrong.
All a pension fund needs to do is invest to cover its outgoings.
Stopping people from working from home. Stupid, it’s no concern of the govt at all what employer and employee agree in the private sector.
I’m in favour of deporting people with no right to be here, illegals, criminals, overstayers, but deporting people who have had ILR to remain here and played by the rules. Retrospectively changing that. Can’t agree. I consider that dangerous,
Also why brand the removals team ICE. Just seems a bit daft.
I also consider The Greens to be far worse than Reform and would vote Reform over Green easily,
Huge win for the Greens - the Polanski effect is real and just as world-shattering as Farageism.
What does this tell us:
Voters want change and they’re not getting it from the LabCon
Voters are flocking to insurgent other parties: Green, Reform, Plaid and not the other side of the LabCon as would traditionally be the case. Compare and contrast this result with Hartlepools just 5 years ago.
Reform attract anti-votes in larger numbers than they attract votes. Yes, people vote for them. But more people vote against them as a direct result of people voting for them.
I’m calling this now. Reform won’t be in government after the next election. The anti-vote alone will do them over in enough seats. Then you have the coming factor - the fragmentation of the nutter vote to Reform Advance Retard parties etc. Habib came behind Sutch tonight, but that won’t always happen.
Can a progressive caucus work together? Labour, LibDem, Green? Yes. Can a regressive caucus work together? Tory, Fukers, Yaxley-Lennonites etc? No.
The amazing Winter Olympics, followed by this by-election and all the political commentary incoming, and with Crufts now just six days to wait; we live in exciting times…
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
What is it these people switching to Green want?
For Labour to actually change something, apart from its own mind?
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
You can't apply vote changes from a by-election across the country like that to any useful end. By-election swings are typically much larger, not least because the intense campaigning generally turbocharges tactical voting.
You would expect the view changes to be different in a seat where the Tories were first or second at GE2024.
Badenoch has pulled the Tory polling up from its nadir. There's a long way to go to recover the ground lost since the last GE, but I think they are a lot less doomed than they appeared to be six months ago.
Am I the only person thinking she’s doing quite a good job?
Her solution for tuition fees is not a good one however she astutely gave the attention to the issue of tuition fees and has charted a course that isn’t going after pensioners. Something I have been calling for, for years.
There’s a space for a Tory Party that would do very well with the let’s say 25-45 age bracket. She’s made the first attempt at speaking to them.
They need to do away with their NIMBYism streak next.
And thereafter their obsessive hatred of the EU. Taking the wider view, that’s where the party went off the rails. And they were at it again yesterday, slagging off what looks like a very sensible, positive and pragmatic solution for Gibraltar.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
He was personally associated with it weeks ago when he blocked Burnham from standing.
I've just watched a video from some unwashed left wing influencer claiming that Restore Britain wants to remove a million people over a period of five years.
I want to make our response really clear, because this is just blatant misinformation.
We'll deport far more than that.
*Farage is Reform. Habib is Advance. So Lowe must be Retard. As in hold back, not any other meaning.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
The Guardian reports of Spencer's victory speech have her striking a very left-wing economic tone, rather than talking about cultural or foreign policy issues.
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that. ... People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
Watch it live, and it came across as a very personal speech. Kudos to the Greens for just letting the new MP speak, and not having some speech full of political points in her pocket that someone at Green Towers had written for her.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Rayner? An actual criminal. Have we gone mad?
She’s not a criminal but may have to pay a penalty. But keep pushing your narrative as it will boost her credentials as someone the right are afraid of.
My view has nothing to do with the good odds I have on her replacing SKS
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Rayner? An actual criminal. Have we gone mad?
She’s not a criminal but may have to pay a penalty. But keep pushing your narrative as it will boost her credentials as someone the right are afraid of.
My view has nothing to do with the good odds I have on her replacing SKS
I think Rayner would put Labour onto a massive loss.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
One learning point emerging from the by-election is that there were tons of potential Reform/Green switchers. The significance of the by-election could be that the Greens take the shine away from Reform and become the new most popular way to rage against the mob. A lot of voters are simply looking for a way to give the establishment a good kicking.
‘ The end of two-party politics as we’ve known it? The two insurgent parties came first and second with a combined 70% of the vote. Labour and Tory combined? 27%.’
The amazing Winter Olympics, followed by this by-election and all the political commentary incoming, and with Crufts now just six days to wait; we live in exciting times…
I was thinking the Gorton byelection and Crufts was an unlikely collocation, but then remembered that Hannah Spencer does own four greyhounds
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Yes. And the real terror for the Tories now is that Reform are fast becoming the default right wing option in hundreds of seats. If you want the borders controlled and migration curtailed and the boat people stopped and etc etc etc you have one choice. Reform
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
The Muslim vote won it for the Greens in Gorton and Denton.
We are organising our community because our voices have never been heard by any mainstream party or media.
And we will use our numbers and our collective will at the ballot box to punish those who oppress us and reward those who support us.
Reform UK, Nigel Farage, Matt Goodwin, Labour, Keir Starmer, GB News and Talk TV, you boys took one hell of a beating!
And there's more of that to come!
The Greens might have the most anti-gay voter base in the country. Toss up with Reform.
The thing I’ve always found most puzzling about support for Hamas is the amount of very progressive people who are involved.
You can support a free Palestine as I do (although I have to be honest it’s not something I consider when I vote) without supporting a terrorist group that puts gays to death.
As I said above, the Greens haven’t received any scrutiny yet. They will.
Pretty puzzling the number of people who spout the ‘puts gays to death’ line.
Wiki
“Hamas has a long record of persecuting LGBTQ people in Gaza, including arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Homosexuality is illegal in Gaza under a mix of old British-era laws and Islamist rule.
Hamas security forces have arrested men accused of being gay, often charging them with “moral crimes” or using the accusation to coerce informants.
Human-rights groups (like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty) have documented cases of torture, beatings, and killings of suspected gay men.
Several Palestinians have fled Gaza or sought asylum abroad specifically because they feared execution or violence due to their sexuality.”
Meanwhile here is the deputy leader of the Greens, Mothin Ali, on October 7, 2023, calling the Hamas rape and murder of Israelis “the Al aqsa flood” and praising their “fight back against white settler colonialist imperialism”
Great that they’ve kept at least one bit of the British Empire. Nevertheless the death penalty for homosexuality is not part of the Palestinian penal code in Gaza or the West Bank.
Wow. What a relief, we can all head to the Gaza beaches for a pride party.....just don't buy a return ticket.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Pivot to the left in what sense?
Stop taking on Reform on issues like migration, diversity and gender.
So basically be more pro migration, be more pro DEI and be more embracing of so-called trans rights.
Economically more stupid stuff like wealth taxes.
I expect they will become a party more in tune with the views of its activists
Opposing renewable energy is stupid. And making companies stop using pylons is exactly the sort of NIMBYism we need to do away with.
When Reform oppose net zero and the costs associated with it. Fine. I agree as well as exploiting more oil and gas.
Opposing renewables is Stupid. They are part of a balanced mix.
My MP has been opposing a proposed solar farm up here in Durham recently,
Labour’s biggest disappointment for me personally is any real action on planning. Although they have now opened a consultation on making it easier to build 5G out. So that might be interesting.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Pivot to the left in what sense?
Stop taking on Reform on issues like migration, diversity and gender.
So basically be more pro migration, be more pro DEI and be more embracing of so-called trans rights.
Economically more stupid stuff like wealth taxes.
I expect they will become a party more in tune with the views of its activists
But none of these are vote winners. And yet apparently they must do this to stop the Greens.
I think they need to continue with cutting immigration, eventually cutting taxes, do something on tuition fees and improve public services. That’s all they really need to do.
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
Because he felt he had to show face given the presence of Burnham. Blocking Burnham has proven to be a serious error. Burnham very sensibly kept providing high profile support throughout the campaign, this is not his fault or his loss. Saying SKS didn't even show would have added to the narrative that surrounds him. this morning. He's in trouble. Serious trouble.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Rayner? An actual criminal. Have we gone mad?
She’s not a criminal but may have to pay a penalty. But keep pushing your narrative as it will boost her credentials as someone the right are afraid of.
My view has nothing to do with the good odds I have on her replacing SKS
I was just wondering if the odds on Starmer’s departure have tightened. Surely he goes this year
One more problem for Labour is that it looks increasingly difficult for Labour to win any seat anywhere. Thus preventing Burnham from returning to SW1
That makes Rayner favourite by a distance. Especially as she is on the left and the Green victory will push Labour to the left
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Yes. And the real terror for the Tories now is that Reform are fast becoming the default right wing option in hundreds of seats. If you want the borders controlled and migration curtailed and the boat people stopped and etc etc etc you have one choice. Reform
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
Greens v Reform then it’s clearly Reform.
Have the Greens offered a view on climate reparations or slavery reparations yet ?
The only question for a lot of people is: "What is the best way of beating Reform?" The answer here was clearly Green. The problem for Labour is there aren't many places where it is Labour.
I am not convinced that backing Tories for most seats is the correct conclusion from that poll.
Is that the Tories worst byelection petformance since dinosaurs walked over Gorton and Denton?
Doing some further sums, and with a pretty similar turnout to the GE I think this fair.
I think it fair to assume that the 6% who switched away from the Tories nearly all went to Reform, so 3/4 GE 24 voters, over and above their worst GE result in 2 centuries. Badenoch is staring into the abyss.
Which also means that 8.7% of the electorate switched from Lab to Reform, around 1/7 of the Lab GE 24 vote, while Lab lost more than twice that to the Greens.
All the tactical voting sites recommended voting Green to ensure Goodwin lost.
I do not think many GE 24 Tory voters switched to Green.
The national opinion polling also shows Lab 24 voters switching heavily to Green, far more than to Reform. That switch is not just a byelection phenomenon.
The May elections in England are going to be a meltdown for Lab and Tories, a good night for Reform, but also a very good night for the Greens.
Both Starmer and Badenoch are going to struggle to survive the year as leader.
I suspect the Polanski bounce puts Labour's poll share down to around 15.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
Rayner? An actual criminal. Have we gone mad?
New Labour is dead, we need some Wilsonian socialism. The alternatives are dorks like Milliband, Lucy Powell and Streeting.
I see from your flag that Angela Rayner posts on here. I was wondering who she posts as. I am going with @Leon .
The amazing Winter Olympics, followed by this by-election and all the political commentary incoming, and with Crufts now just six days to wait; we live in exciting times…
The Guardian reports of Spencer's victory speech have her striking a very left-wing economic tone, rather than talking about cultural or foreign policy issues.
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that. ... People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
Watch it live, and it came across as a very personal speech. Kudos to the Greens for just letting the new MP speak, and not having some speech full of political points in her pocket that someone at Green Towers had written for her.
It’s just stupid grievance politics. There is nothing stopping anyone starting a business and making themselves wealthy by doing so.
Most people,don’t as they won’t take the risk.
She’s supposedly a plumber training to be a plasterer. Nothing stopping her setting up her own business
We have fewer than 113 billionaires in the U.K. fewer than New York City. Many create a lot of jobs and pay a huge amount of tax.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Yes. And the real terror for the Tories now is that Reform are fast becoming the default right wing option in hundreds of seats. If you want the borders controlled and migration curtailed and the boat people stopped and etc etc etc you have one choice. Reform
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
Greens v Reform then it’s clearly Reform.
Have the Greens offered a view on climate reparations or slavery reparations yet ?
Yeah me too, Green policy on defence disqualifies them for me automatically.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Pivot to the left in what sense?
Stop taking on Reform on issues like migration, diversity and gender.
So basically be more pro migration, be more pro DEI and be more embracing of so-called trans rights.
Economically more stupid stuff like wealth taxes.
I expect they will become a party more in tune with the views of its activists
But none of these are vote winners. And yet apparently they must do this to stop the Greens.
I think they need to continue with cutting immigration, eventually cutting taxes, do something on tuition fees and improve public services. That’s all they really need to do.
They need to focus on governing well. They’re the government.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
Only by twits, such as yourself
Meh, just a couple of days ago on here there was a running joke that noone could call it.
This isn't a disaster for Reform, but it does change the narrative - they're no longer in the ascendancy.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Pivot to the left in what sense?
Stop taking on Reform on issues like migration, diversity and gender.
So basically be more pro migration, be more pro DEI and be more embracing of so-called trans rights.
Economically more stupid stuff like wealth taxes.
I expect they will become a party more in tune with the views of its activists
But none of these are vote winners. And yet apparently they must do this to stop the Greens.
I think they need to continue with cutting immigration, eventually cutting taxes, do something on tuition fees and improve public services. That’s all they really need to do.
They need to focus on governing well. They’re the government.
The Guardian reports of Spencer's victory speech have her striking a very left-wing economic tone, rather than talking about cultural or foreign policy issues.
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that. ... People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
Could have been a Reform victory speech, if they hadn’t chosen a socially awkward, anemic weirdo.obsessed with white Britishness.
So compared to the 28,28,27 poll the result was pretty accurate for Reform and Labour, but the poll hugely understated Green. Are we seeing the emergence of the shy Green voter?
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
I posted at some point in the middle of the night, the clear message to Labour / Starmer and the zionist clique that have taken over Labour is quite simple.
Labour Policy, at least initially on Gaza was completely and utterly wrong.
Whilst Russia / Ukraine is a war fought between armies (good guys and bad guys) the actions of the IDF in repsonse top Hamas barbarism is State sponsored Barbarism on a scale weve not seen since Pol Pot.
Whlsit the late acceptance of the right of Palestinians to have a State and the remider that Labour do favour a 2 state solution, has stemmed the centre left flow, in terms of the muslim population it is simply not acceptable. There and in large parts of the centre left, there is raw visceral anger that a UK Labour Prty in Government has not taken punitive diplomatic action against Israel, banned imports, stopped exports, closed the Embassy and made it clear that the current Israeli regime are going to be trested as war criminals and Israel will be a pariah state LIKE Russia until there is regime change.
That one single measure would be welcomed by the massive majority on the left, including notable Jewish non zionists and the fucking extreme irony that muslins will now fall with behind and for a Jewisj non zionist in Polanksi should reverberate in a shocking wake up call to everyone for Starmer down.
Whoever the next labour Leader is, that decision has to be trumpeted loud and clear and with complete and utter conviction. Not for muslims, not to frighten the vast majority of decent British jews , not as a gesture , but to show back bone and decency to the world and to the assholes in Tel Aviv.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Yes. And the real terror for the Tories now is that Reform are fast becoming the default right wing option in hundreds of seats. If you want the borders controlled and migration curtailed and the boat people stopped and etc etc etc you have one choice. Reform
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
Greens v Reform then it’s clearly Reform.
Have the Greens offered a view on climate reparations or slavery reparations yet ?
Do they need to? Politics is as much about feel as it is policy. The simple truth is that most British people aren't low enough to vote Reform. And their palpable gut dislike of the hard right produces more anti-votes than votes.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
I posted at some point in the middle of the night, the clear message to Labour / Starmer and the zionist clique that have taken over Labour is quite simple.
Labour Policy, at least initially on Gaza was completely and utterly wrong.
Whilst Russia / Ukraine is a war fought between armies (good guys and bad guys) the actions of the IDF in repsonse top Hamas barbarism is State sponsored Barbarism on a scale weve not seen since Pol Pot.
Whlsit the late acceptance of the right of Palestinians to have a State and the remider that Labour do favour a 2 state solution, has stemmed the centre left flow, in terms of the muslim population it is simply not acceptable. There and in large parts of the centre left, there is raw visceral anger that a UK Labour Prty in Government has not taken punitive diplomatic action against Israel, banned imports, stopped exports, closed the Embassy and made it clear that the current Israeli regime are going to be trested as war criminals and Israel will be a pariah state LIKE Russia until there is regime change.
That one single measure would be welcomed by the massive majority on the left, including notable Jewish non zionists and the fucking extreme irony that muslins will now fall with behind and for a Jewisj non zionist in Polanksi should reverberate in a shocking wake up call to everyone for Starmer down.
Whoever the next labour Leader is, that decision has to be trumpeted loud and clear and with complete and utter conviction. Not for muslims, not to frighten the vast majority of decent British jews , not as a gesture , but to show back bone and decency to the world and to the assholes in Tel Aviv.
Labour policy on Israel has, since Blair, been happy clappy pro IDF, pro Israeli right.
I also see other changes of tone. Labour will move to where its activist base is.
The Muslim vote won it for the Greens in Gorton and Denton.
We are organising our community because our voices have never been heard by any mainstream party or media.
And we will use our numbers and our collective will at the ballot box to punish those who oppress us and reward those who support us.
Reform UK, Nigel Farage, Matt Goodwin, Labour, Keir Starmer, GB News and Talk TV, you boys took one hell of a beating!
And there's more of that to come!
The Greens might have the most anti-gay voter base in the country. Toss up with Reform.
The thing I’ve always found most puzzling about support for Hamas is the amount of very progressive people who are involved.
You can support a free Palestine as I do (although I have to be honest it’s not something I consider when I vote) without supporting a terrorist group that puts gays to death.
As I said above, the Greens haven’t received any scrutiny yet. They will.
Pretty puzzling the number of people who spout the ‘puts gays to death’ line.
Wiki
“Hamas has a long record of persecuting LGBTQ people in Gaza, including arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Homosexuality is illegal in Gaza under a mix of old British-era laws and Islamist rule.
Hamas security forces have arrested men accused of being gay, often charging them with “moral crimes” or using the accusation to coerce informants.
Human-rights groups (like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty) have documented cases of torture, beatings, and killings of suspected gay men.
Several Palestinians have fled Gaza or sought asylum abroad specifically because they feared execution or violence due to their sexuality.”
Meanwhile here is the deputy leader of the Greens, Mothin Ali, on October 7, 2023, calling the Hamas rape and murder of Israelis “the Al aqsa flood” and praising their “fight back against white settler colonialist imperialism”
Great that they’ve kept at least one bit of the British Empire. Nevertheless the death penalty for homosexuality is not part of the Palestinian penal code in Gaza or the West Bank.
Wow. What a relief, we can all head to the Gaza beaches for a pride party.....just don't buy a return ticket.
Mind how you go in your rainbow mankini, a Bibi ‘ceasefire’ means the IDF are still killing around 10 people a day.
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
Because he felt he had to show face given the presence of Burnham. Blocking Burnham has proven to be a serious error. Burnham very sensibly kept providing high profile support throughout the campaign, this is not his fault or his loss. Saying SKS didn't even show would have added to the narrative that surrounds him. this morning. He's in trouble. Serious trouble.
Starmer blocking Burnham was a terrible mistake on multiple levels.
1. It looked deeply petty, selfish and vindictive 2. It looked weak 3. If Burnham had been allowed to stand and had won Starmer would have appeared magnanimous and sensible, boosting Starmer’s image as an actual leader 4. If Burnham had lost the blame would have largely attached to Burnham, and Starmer could have sighed and said he gave Labour the best chance possible
So with his innate ability to do the stupidest thing in any given situation Starmer has weakened himself, his party and his government. And he is in an even more perilous position. And he lost one of Labour’s safest seats
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
I posted at some point in the middle of the night, the clear message to Labour / Starmer and the zionist clique that have taken over Labour is quite simple.
Labour Policy, at least initially on Gaza was completely and utterly wrong.
Whilst Russia / Ukraine is a war fought between armies (good guys and bad guys) the actions of the IDF in repsonse top Hamas barbarism is State sponsored Barbarism on a scale weve not seen since Pol Pot.
Whlsit the late acceptance of the right of Palestinians to have a State and the remider that Labour do favour a 2 state solution, has stemmed the centre left flow, in terms of the muslim population it is simply not acceptable. There and in large parts of the centre left, there is raw visceral anger that a UK Labour Prty in Government has not taken punitive diplomatic action against Israel, banned imports, stopped exports, closed the Embassy and made it clear that the current Israeli regime are going to be trested as war criminals and Israel will be a pariah state LIKE Russia until there is regime change.
That one single measure would be welcomed by the massive majority on the left, including notable Jewish non zionists and the fucking extreme irony that muslins will now fall with behind and for a Jewisj non zionist in Polanksi should reverberate in a shocking wake up call to everyone for Starmer down.
Whoever the next labour Leader is, that decision has to be trumpeted loud and clear and with complete and utter conviction. Not for muslims, not to frighten the vast majority of decent British jews , not as a gesture , but to show back bone and decency to the world and to the assholes in Tel Aviv.
Labour policy on Israel has, since Blair, been happy clappy pro IDF, pro Israeli right.
I also see other changes of tone. Labour will move to where its activist base is.
There have certainly been some changes since McSweeney left, a subtle change in tone.
I don’t really think it’s enough, Labour really need to show some process on anything. If they have any skill they’ll trumpet the drop in immigration figures to the heavens.
Forming a government after the next election could be an absolute clusterfuck.
Could plausible have: - Reform: 200 seats after some swingback and tactical voting - Labour: 125 seats - Greens, Lib Dems and Tories: 80 seats each - SNP: 40 seats
I'm not sure there would be a plausible governing coalition out of that. The Lib Dems won't work with Reform. Four left-leaning parties together would be a disaster and never get off the ground.
Would probably just need to have another go at voting.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
It was not a massive rejection of Badenoch. Its the sort of loon comment I would expect you to make . Your faceless leader never met anyone at the by election even though he went there because he is too cowardly to hear what voters think
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
Only by twits, such as yourself
Meh, just a couple of days ago on here there was a running joke that noone could call it.
This isn't a disaster for Reform, but it does change the narrative - they're no longer in the ascendancy.
But I did call it. I predicted green reform Labour in that order.
I’m not claiming it was my greatest display of Leondamussery, for a start that was the opinion of the markets as well. Green reform Labour in that order
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
Because he felt he had to show face given the presence of Burnham. Blocking Burnham has proven to be a serious error. Burnham very sensibly kept providing high profile support throughout the campaign, this is not his fault or his loss. Saying SKS didn't even show would have added to the narrative that surrounds him. this morning. He's in trouble. Serious trouble.
Starmer blocking Burnham was a terrible mistake on multiple levels.
1. It looked deeply petty, selfish and vindictive 2. It looked weak 3. If Burnham had been allowed to stand and had won Starmer would have appeared magnanimous and sensible, boosting Starmer’s image as an actual leader 4. If Burnham had lost the blame would have largely attached to Burnham, and Starmer could have sighed and said he gave Labour the best chance possible
So with his innate ability to do the stupidest thing in any given situation Starmer has weakened himself, his party and his government. And he is in an even more perilous position. And he lost one of Labour’s safest seats
Burnhamism is the way out for Labour. Manchester's economic miracle is not down to Burnham, it started decades before. But having been elected he has become the figurehead for it, the fighting politician set against the machine actually setting out to deliver "Change". Both the physical kind and the feeling.
The problem is that the Labour powers that be are resolutely stuck in the machine or on the batshit left where the machine needs to be smashed, not harnessed.
The economic miracle of Manchester is capitalism. The decline of the UK is that we have largely given that up and replaced it with bankism and spivism. We don't invest, we don't strive (because whats the point), we don't hope. Manchester seems to have all that in buckets, and the really smart political bit? The worker bee symbolism. Its hard graft, its collectivism, its RESULTS.
The only question for a lot of people is: "What is the best way of beating Reform?" The answer here was clearly Green. The problem for Labour is there aren't many places where it is Labour.
When the by-election was called, Ladbrokes had the Greens at 6/1, with Labour odds-on to win and Reform very close behind. Fools like Leon might wish to rewrite history, but the truth remains that there’s been a big shift in expectations for last night’s election during the campaign.
When I posted, on 23 Jan - the day after Gwynne resigned, I’m already on the Greens with Ladbrokes, on the back of stories that Burnham will be stopped from standing, and the clear evidence of anti-Reform tactical voting in other contests, that wasn’t the majority view at all.
Forming a government after the next election could be an absolute clusterfuck.
Could plausible have: - Reform: 200 seats after some swingback and tactical voting - Labour: 125 seats - Greens, Lib Dems and Tories: 80 seats each - SNP: 40 seats
I'm not sure there would be a plausible governing coalition out of that. The Lib Dems won't work with Reform. Four left-leaning parties together would be a disaster and never get off the ground.
Would probably just need to have another go at voting.
The rest of the civilised world manages to deal with these non majority situations regularly. Just a normal part of politics. I think FPTP infantilises politicians, as its equivalent does in the USA.
And yes, sometimes they just call another election.
So compared to the 28,28,27 poll the result was pretty accurate for Reform and Labour, but the poll hugely understated Green. Are we seeing the emergence of the shy Green voter?
Echoes of the way that the polls didn't pick up the Gaza Indies in 2024?
I've just watched a video from some unwashed left wing influencer claiming that Restore Britain wants to remove a million people over a period of five years.
I want to make our response really clear, because this is just blatant misinformation.
We'll deport far more than that.
*Farage is Reform. Habib is Advance. So Lowe must be Retard. As in hold back, not any other meaning.
His policy is 2 million in 3 years, iirc.
To a degree I think it is like the Reform DOGE Operation - make up a big number out of thin air, and worry about reality later.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
Only by twits, such as yourself
Meh, just a couple of days ago on here there was a running joke that noone could call it.
This isn't a disaster for Reform, but it does change the narrative - they're no longer in the ascendancy.
But I did call it. I predicted green reform Labour in that order.
I’m not claiming it was my greatest display of Leondamussery, for a start that was the opinion of the markets as well. Green reform Labour in that order
But I did get it right
And credit to you and others who did so (lots yesterday).
My point is that your hindsight narrative that this was a proving ground for Goodwin is just that, hindsight.
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
Goodwin will definitely be a candidate next time round, though frankly it would be difficult to imagine any of their high profile figures not getting a crack at a seat. I think he ran a pretty good campaign. The low Tory vote tells me that he managed to squeeze that vote (such as it was) quite efficiently, and well done to those Tories who voted for a right wing candidate to win. Likewise, Nick Buckley, a pretty good candidate for Advance, got less votes than Sir Oinkalot. So he rolled those hard right votes up pretty well too.
The shift in the Muslim vote was undoubtedly what won it for the Greens. Reform were never going to get that.
Forming a government after the next election could be an absolute clusterfuck.
Could plausible have: - Reform: 200 seats after some swingback and tactical voting - Labour: 125 seats - Greens, Lib Dems and Tories: 80 seats each - SNP: 40 seats
I'm not sure there would be a plausible governing coalition out of that. The Lib Dems won't work with Reform. Four left-leaning parties together would be a disaster and never get off the ground.
Would probably just need to have another go at voting.
You've missed off the fracturing of the right. As Reform become Con2, the faithful are splitting off to back Habib and Lowe. They are bound to win a few seats - and better still will be the force that shatters Reform in endless seats where they lose thanks to the hard right.
Which was the exact same pattern seen in 2019. The Tories only failed to win seats like Easington and Sunderland Central thanks to Farage splitting the vote and letting Labour hold on. We will see the same in 2029. Reform losing votes to Restore and Advance with the Greens strolling through the middle.
I really don’t like that Reform are going head on at the idea the election was stolen. This seems like the sort of thing I was hoping they wouldn’t just copy wholesale from Trump.
I think it's important that the concerns raised by the independent election observers are addressed, rather than lost in an argument over Reform claiming it lost them the election.
I think that’s fair however it is going to be lost because Reform have jumped straight to “Muslims lost us this”
Is democracy volunteers a real thing or just some pretend pressure group?
The returning officers response (“we didn’t see anything and it should have been reported earlier”) is not a constructive response to a potentially serious allegation
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
Goodwin will definitely be a candidate next time round, though frankly it would be difficult to imagine any of their high profile figures not getting a crack at a seat. I think he ran a pretty good campaign. The low Tory vote tells me that he managed to squeeze that vote (such as it was) quite efficiently, and well done to those Tories who voted for a right wing candidate to win. Likewise, Nick Buckley, a pretty good candidate for Advance, got less votes than Sir Oinkalot. So he rolled those hard right votes up pretty well too.
The shift in the Muslim vote was undoubtedly what won it for the Greens. Reform were never going to get that.
The constituency is not split "Muslims" and "Whites" where Reform won the white vote and the Greens the Muslims...
Great candidate and the Party Labour should have been. The left won't support a genocide. Even the centre left. I hope Diane Abbott laughs herself to sleep
Which has absolutely nothing to do with anyone in Britain, we're not responsible for, we can't influence or control anyway, and is just one of many challenging issues in world affairs right now, and not even the biggest one.
It's entirely perfomative and irrelevant to any of rhe real issues.
Did you support aparthed in South Africa? Yes of course you did. I forgot. Most Tories did. For most on the left if was the defining issue of the time. It's what politicised a generation. Maybe you are too young?
Brilliant result for the Greens. Disastrous for Labour.
I think Reform need to hold their nerve now. Going to the media complaining about Muslims is not going to help them in the seats which are winnable - the polling looks like they have a ceiling and they need to push through that. Just leave it, it's a decent result.
For Labour, I disagree with all the "Hamas-support" bollocks above. A competent political outfit would be able to openly criticise the IDF (look at the BBC news story yesterday, FFS - blatant murder) while not being terrorist supporters. This is not a view constrained only to Muslims - a large plurality, even majority, thinks this way too. It's important - people vote Labour often on a moral basis, and it's a huge block on that instinct.
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
I’d disagree with Reform. They performed adequately in target seat 400 or so and the right wing vote coalesced around them and Advance got spanked.
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
Yes. And the real terror for the Tories now is that Reform are fast becoming the default right wing option in hundreds of seats. If you want the borders controlled and migration curtailed and the boat people stopped and etc etc etc you have one choice. Reform
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
Greens v Reform then it’s clearly Reform.
Have the Greens offered a view on climate reparations or slavery reparations yet ?
Do they need to? Politics is as much about feel as it is policy. The simple truth is that most British people aren't low enough to vote Reform. And their palpable gut dislike of the hard right produces more anti-votes than votes.
You're right about politics, though not about government. And if a lot of people aren't very careful, an awkward bit of recent history might repeat itself.
For a long time, there were people on the right who were keen on Farage. Not for him to be PM, but to put the backbone back into the Conservatives. Or to knock Labour out so that the grownups could rule. With Nigel's backing, of course.
That depended on the Conservatives being able to, as that line from the film goes "control them". It turns out that they can't, because centrists can't control radicals.
I do get the sense that some are hoping that the rise of the Greens will put some left-wing backbone into Labour. Careful what you wish for, folks
Well done to everyone who tipped Greens - sometimes things are as simple as they look! Reform will be very disappointed, but I think the poor Labour showing is probably the headline.
I support Reform (though I’m not a member let alone an activist, and my support is a reluctant acceptance that they are the only hope right now). I want them, therefore, to prosper. But I’m not remotely disappointed. That’s a strange reaction
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
Fair.
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The idea was to get Goodwin out there “as a politician” and not some effete essayist academic. To introduce him to the rough and tumble of doorstep politics in a really hard seat. No one sensible expected him to win - as you say it’s hard to see any Reformer winning this seat
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
That’s just a stream of BS. When the by-election was called, Reform expected to win.
Only by twits, such as yourself
Meh, just a couple of days ago on here there was a running joke that noone could call it.
This isn't a disaster for Reform, but it does change the narrative - they're no longer in the ascendancy.
But I did call it. I predicted green reform Labour in that order.
I’m not claiming it was my greatest display of Leondamussery, for a start that was the opinion of the markets as well. Green reform Labour in that order
But I did get it right
And credit to you and others who did so (lots yesterday).
My point is that your hindsight narrative that this was a proving ground for Goodwin is just that, hindsight.
If I’m exceptionally bored tonight in China I will try and find the comment where I first suggested this might be the rationale behind reform standing Goodwin in such a tough seat. It was a few days after Goodwin announced his candidacy
Of course that doesn’t mean I’m right about reform’s thinking. It just means this has been my opinion for a while
I really don’t like that Reform are going head on at the idea the election was stolen. This seems like the sort of thing I was hoping they wouldn’t just copy wholesale from Trump.
I think it's important that the concerns raised by the independent election observers are addressed, rather than lost in an argument over Reform claiming it lost them the election.
I think that’s fair however it is going to be lost because Reform have jumped straight to “Muslims lost us this”
Is democracy volunteers a real thing or just some pretend pressure group?
The returning officers response (“we didn’t see anything and it should have been reported earlier”) is not a constructive response to a potentially serious allegation
It is a serious allegation. And yes they seem to be legitimate
The only question for a lot of people is: "What is the best way of beating Reform?" The answer here was clearly Green. The problem for Labour is there aren't many places where it is Labour.
When the by-election was called, Ladbrokes had the Greens at 6/1, with Labour odds-on to win and Reform very close behind. Fools like Leon might wish to rewrite history, but the truth remains that there’s been a big shift in expectations for last night’s election during the campaign.
When I posted, on 23 Jan - the day after Gwynne resigned, I’m already on the Greens with Ladbrokes, on the back of stories that Burnham will be stopped from standing, and the clear evidence of anti-Reform tactical voting in other contests, that wasn’t the majority view at all.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, the narrative was clearly all about how this was a test of how far Reform could embarass Labour. This is a thus a big win for the Greens, absolutely no question about it.
On topic. Labour thrashing about with accusations of the Greens being paedos and the drug dealers’ friend went down like a pint of cold sick. As with Mamdani if you’ve got nothing attractive in your own locker, voters can see through that shite. Unfortunately we can expect more of this because they don’t know what else to do.
The Green policy on NATO is genuinely scary though.
In what sense?
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to a large change in Green Party policy on NATO. The party now no longer opposes NATO membership.
Polanski does still advocate for leaving NATO, but party policy is not determined solely by the party leader in the Greens, unlike in less democratic parties in Britain.
I think a Green government would just withdraw British forces from the NATO command structure without withdrawing from the treaty. There would be a similar approach to Trident. Don't scrap it, but just don't spend a penny on it until it stops working. Remember, we are the most intelligent British political party, on average, and therefore the most devious.
This result again shows Skyr’s anti-instinctive non-touch for politics. Why did he go visit a constituency where, a day later, his party was historically beaten into third place, losing half their vote??
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
Because he felt he had to show face given the presence of Burnham. Blocking Burnham has proven to be a serious error. Burnham very sensibly kept providing high profile support throughout the campaign, this is not his fault or his loss. Saying SKS didn't even show would have added to the narrative that surrounds him. this morning. He's in trouble. Serious trouble.
Starmer blocking Burnham was a terrible mistake on multiple levels.
1. It looked deeply petty, selfish and vindictive 2. It looked weak 3. If Burnham had been allowed to stand and had won Starmer would have appeared magnanimous and sensible, boosting Starmer’s image as an actual leader 4. If Burnham had lost the blame would have largely attached to Burnham, and Starmer could have sighed and said he gave Labour the best chance possible
So with his innate ability to do the stupidest thing in any given situation Starmer has weakened himself, his party and his government. And he is in an even more perilous position. And he lost one of Labour’s safest seats
Blocking Burnham and appointing Mandelson - two of Morgan's finest personnel decisions.
With a political genius like that in Number 10 for most of his time in office, is there any wonder that Starmer is the least popular PM ever?
Comments
Not yet not whilst SKS is PM or Lab are red Tories.
King Andy the only hope for them
But who cares well done Hannah and the Green hordes
Which Labour lost.
It is a great win for Spencer and the Greens, someone willing to stand up against the racism and misogyny of Reform, and for a liberal, tolerant multicultural version of Britain.
I never expected them to win this and I said from the start the Greens were the likely winners. Go check
Indeed right from the start I was mystified why Farage would put a really promising talent and intellect like Goodwin in an almost unwinabble seat
But now I see the logic. Goodwin has been blooded. He’s learnt how to campaign from a standing start and in a difficult seat. He’ll have learned valuable lessons
They should now let him stand in a seat he can win easily - and then retain. And then put him in the cabinet
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia led to a large change in Green Party policy on NATO. The party now no longer opposes NATO membership.
Polanski does still advocate for leaving NATO, but party policy is not determined solely by the party leader in the Greens, unlike in less democratic parties in Britain.
Labour's only hope to find itself in the mid 20s is a Rayner premiership. No New Labour retreads please, and what on earth made Starmer and Reeves believe we all voted for continuity Sunak?
The indications I picked up that Labour were very strong in the seat were pretty much things that they had to say, to try to cling on to being the left wing alternative to Reform.
Matt Goodwin was not the best candidate, but though I absolutely don't regret being optimistic, I am not sure any Reform candidate was going to win this.
The Green Party recognises that NATO has an important role in ensuring the ability of its member states to respond to threats to their security. We would work within NATO to achieve:
A greater focus on global peacebuilding.
A commitment to a ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons.
So in effect they would make NATO useless and make our defences weaker.
https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/a-fairer-greener-world/
I cannot see how this can be a vote winner.
The Greens are loons Reform are loons and Labour are loathed and lost.
I suppose Labour.losing has to be a success of aorts.
The voters will pay a price for it because they dont support Green politics. They will find out soon enough.
And not won on a particularly low percentage share - indeed I suspect that nowadays, 41% of the vote is above average?
I see the communist came last, beaten by the number of ballot papers returned that were completely blank.
The new MP comes across very well, and I reckon she stands a good chance of retaining the seat for at least one GE.
And the worst Tory performance in a by election, EVER!
"Instead of working for a nice life, we are working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. And I don’t think it is extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life … I think that absolutely everybody should get a nice life.
And clearly I’m not the only person who thinks that.
...
People in their thousands told me on the doorsteps, and at the ballot box, that what we are sick of is being let down and looked down on, and we are sick of our hard work making other people rich."
Still a very profitable night.
A great way to start a Non League Groundhop.
Jack Dorsey has announced 40% of white collar jobs to'go. Why ? His business, Blocks, is strong and profitable.
They’re being replaced by AI. People like @Leon got what AI meant for white collar jobs.
https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343?s=61
Those locals in inner city wards will be interesting.
@FeersumEnjineeya where would you see Green gains in Brum ?
Communist came last. Communist came first. What a result for Gaza.
FOUR abject Losers
Greens 41% an excellent result, great candidate, excellent team work , well deserved
Reform 29% disappointing result, clearly affected by tactical voting on a terrible night for Right Wing extremism awful candidate
Labour 26% massive wake up call, not wipe out but nearly, decent candidate, pressure back on SKS - only glimmer 69% voted for centre left
Tories 2% risible, faceless campaign, massive rejection of Badenoch, massive rejection of Right Wing Politics exisential leadership change
LD 2% equally risble, massively affected by tactical voting, but in the not too distant past they would have been recipient of protest vote.
Only ONE WINNER , Four terrible losers!
Or even Truss?
I don’t think the Greens won because of the Daily Mail, either.
The risk was that he’d be humiliated, be shown up as weak and pitiful and not robust enough for doorstep politics. Therefore coming a bad 3rd or even 4th
That absolutely did not happen. He beat Labour in one of their homeland seats but was himself beaten by the Muslim bloc vote and a lefty surge to the Greens
But he came second. Silver medal. Very respectable
He’s now got the experience and he deserves a winnable seat for the GE. I’m sure Farage is clever enough to have worked all this out
Who’s on the hook when it goes wrong.
All a pension fund needs to do is invest to cover its outgoings.
Stopping people from working from home. Stupid, it’s no concern of the govt at all what employer and employee agree in the private sector.
I’m in favour of deporting people with no right to be here, illegals, criminals, overstayers, but deporting people who have had ILR to remain here and played by the rules. Retrospectively changing that. Can’t agree. I consider that dangerous,
Also why brand the removals team ICE. Just seems a bit daft.
I also consider The Greens to be far worse than Reform and would vote Reform over Green easily,
What does this tell us:
Voters want change and they’re not getting it from the LabCon
Voters are flocking to insurgent other parties: Green, Reform, Plaid and not the other side of the LabCon as would traditionally be the case. Compare and contrast this result with Hartlepools just 5 years ago.
Reform attract anti-votes in larger numbers than they attract votes. Yes, people vote for them. But more people vote against them as a direct result of people voting for them.
I’m calling this now. Reform won’t be in government after the next election. The anti-vote alone will do them over in enough seats. Then you have the coming factor - the fragmentation of the nutter vote to Reform Advance Retard parties etc. Habib came behind Sutch tonight, but that won’t always happen.
Can a progressive caucus work together? Labour, LibDem, Green? Yes. Can a regressive caucus work together? Tory, Fukers, Yaxley-Lennonites etc? No.
Why associate himself personally with that? Maybe he thought his intense charisma and likability could personally swing it back to Labour
Labour will now pivot to the left I expect leaving the right as a Tory v reform battle.
https://x.com/rupertlowe10/status/2026991405655007258?s=46
I've just watched a video from some unwashed left wing influencer claiming that Restore Britain wants to remove a million people over a period of five years.
I want to make our response really clear, because this is just blatant misinformation.
We'll deport far more than that.
*Farage is Reform. Habib is Advance. So Lowe must be Retard. As in hold back, not any other meaning.
My view has nothing to do with the good odds I have on her replacing SKS
Opposing renewables is Stupid. They are part of a balanced mix.
My MP has been opposing a proposed solar farm up here in Durham recently,
One learning point emerging from the by-election is that there were tons of potential Reform/Green switchers. The significance of the by-election could be that the Greens take the shine away from Reform and become the new most popular way to rage against the mob. A lot of voters are simply looking for a way to give the establishment a good kicking.
‘ The end of two-party politics as we’ve known it?
The two insurgent parties came first and second with a combined 70% of the vote.
Labour and Tory combined? 27%.’
https://x.com/afneil/status/2027268283750035677?s=61
That means virtually all the Tory vote could go to Farage
If the left is split the means Farage wins. But of course the same might happen to the left - they coalesce around one party. The greens
So basically be more pro migration, be more pro DEI and be more embracing of so-called trans rights.
Economically more stupid stuff like wealth taxes.
I expect they will become a party more in tune with the views of its activists
I think they need to continue with cutting immigration, eventually cutting taxes, do something on tuition fees and improve public services. That’s all they really need to do.
One more problem for Labour is that it looks increasingly difficult for Labour to win any seat anywhere. Thus preventing Burnham from returning to SW1
That makes Rayner favourite by a distance. Especially as she is on the left and the Green victory will push Labour to the left
Have the Greens offered a view on climate reparations or slavery reparations yet ?
I see from your flag that Angela Rayner posts on here. I was wondering who she posts as. I am going with @Leon .
Most people,don’t as they won’t take the risk.
She’s supposedly a plumber training to be a plasterer. Nothing stopping her setting up her own business
We have fewer than 113 billionaires in the U.K. fewer than New York City. Many create a lot of jobs and pay a huge amount of tax.
This isn't a disaster for Reform, but it does change the narrative - they're no longer in the ascendancy.
Clear that Reform won Denton too, they won't be too displeased by the result I expect.
Well done the Greens !
Labour Policy, at least initially on Gaza was completely and utterly wrong.
Whilst Russia / Ukraine is a war fought between armies (good guys and bad guys) the actions of the IDF in repsonse top Hamas barbarism is State sponsored Barbarism on a scale weve not seen since Pol Pot.
Whlsit the late acceptance of the right of Palestinians to have a State and the remider that Labour do favour a 2 state solution, has stemmed the centre left flow, in terms of the muslim population it is simply not acceptable. There and in large parts of the centre left, there is raw visceral anger that a UK Labour Prty in Government has not taken punitive diplomatic action against Israel, banned imports, stopped exports, closed the Embassy and made it clear that the current Israeli regime are going to be trested as war criminals and Israel will be a pariah state LIKE Russia until there is regime change.
That one single measure would be welcomed by the massive majority on the left, including notable Jewish non zionists and the fucking extreme irony that muslins will now fall with behind and for a Jewisj non zionist in Polanksi should reverberate in a shocking wake up call to everyone for Starmer down.
Whoever the next labour Leader is, that decision has to be trumpeted loud and clear and with complete and utter conviction. Not for muslims, not to frighten the vast majority of decent British jews , not as a gesture , but to show back bone and decency to the world and to the assholes in Tel Aviv.
I also see other changes of tone. Labour will move to where its activist base is.
1. It looked deeply petty, selfish and vindictive
2. It looked weak
3. If Burnham had been allowed to stand and had won Starmer would have appeared magnanimous and sensible, boosting Starmer’s image as an actual leader
4. If Burnham had lost the blame would have largely attached to Burnham, and Starmer could have sighed and said he gave Labour the best chance possible
So with his innate ability to do the stupidest thing in any given situation Starmer has weakened himself, his party and his government. And he is in an even more perilous position. And he lost one of Labour’s safest seats
I don’t really think it’s enough, Labour really need to show some process on anything. If they have any skill they’ll trumpet the drop in immigration figures to the heavens.
Could plausible have:
- Reform: 200 seats after some swingback and tactical voting
- Labour: 125 seats
- Greens, Lib Dems and Tories: 80 seats each
- SNP: 40 seats
I'm not sure there would be a plausible governing coalition out of that. The Lib Dems won't work with Reform. Four left-leaning parties together would be a disaster and never get off the ground.
Would probably just need to have another go at voting.
Your faceless leader never met anyone at the by election even though he went there because he is too cowardly to hear what voters think
I’m not claiming it was my greatest display of Leondamussery, for a start that was the opinion of the markets as well. Green reform Labour in that order
But I did get it right
The problem is that the Labour powers that be are resolutely stuck in the machine or on the batshit left where the machine needs to be smashed, not harnessed.
The economic miracle of Manchester is capitalism. The decline of the UK is that we have largely given that up and replaced it with bankism and spivism. We don't invest, we don't strive (because whats the point), we don't hope. Manchester seems to have all that in buckets, and the really smart political bit? The worker bee symbolism. Its hard graft, its collectivism, its RESULTS.
When I posted, on 23 Jan - the day after Gwynne resigned, I’m already on the Greens with Ladbrokes, on the back of stories that Burnham will be stopped from standing, and the clear evidence of anti-Reform tactical voting in other contests, that wasn’t the majority view at all.
And yes, sometimes they just call another election.
To a degree I think it is like the Reform DOGE Operation - make up a big number out of thin air, and worry about reality later.
My point is that your hindsight narrative that this was a proving ground for Goodwin is just that, hindsight.
The shift in the Muslim vote was undoubtedly what won it for the Greens. Reform were never going to get that.
Which was the exact same pattern seen in 2019. The Tories only failed to win seats like Easington and Sunderland Central thanks to Farage splitting the vote and letting Labour hold on. We will see the same in 2029. Reform losing votes to Restore and Advance with the Greens strolling through the middle.
The returning officers response (“we didn’t see anything and it should have been reported earlier”) is not a constructive response to a potentially serious allegation
I think Reform need to hold their nerve now. Going to the media complaining about Muslims is not going to help them in the seats which are winnable - the polling looks like they have a ceiling and they need to push through that. Just leave it, it's a decent result.
For Labour, I disagree with all the "Hamas-support" bollocks above. A competent political outfit would be able to openly criticise the IDF (look at the BBC news story yesterday, FFS - blatant murder) while not being terrorist supporters. This is not a view constrained only to Muslims - a large plurality, even majority, thinks this way too. It's important - people vote Labour often on a moral basis, and it's a huge block on that instinct.
For a long time, there were people on the right who were keen on Farage. Not for him to be PM, but to put the backbone back into the Conservatives. Or to knock Labour out so that the grownups could rule. With Nigel's backing, of course.
That depended on the Conservatives being able to, as that line from the film goes "control them". It turns out that they can't, because centrists can't control radicals.
I do get the sense that some are hoping that the rise of the Greens will put some left-wing backbone into Labour. Careful what you wish for, folks
The Green agenda would be everything that would make Reform choke on their full English.
Hard to see any coalition Government featuring both of them.
Of course that doesn’t mean I’m right about reform’s thinking. It just means this has been my opinion for a while
https://democracyvolunteers.org/about-us/
Yes, the narrative was clearly all about how this was a test of how far Reform could embarass Labour. This is a thus a big win for the Greens, absolutely no question about it.
With a political genius like that in Number 10 for most of his time in office, is there any wonder that Starmer is the least popular PM ever?