Just voted in what was the most difficult ballot choice I've personally ever had. The Greens are going to run away with the two district council seats in my ward as they are fielding two candidates who are very well known locally. Unfortunately I can't stand either the candidates or the party. I split my vote for one Lib Dem and one Reform candidate who I knew personally.
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
I don’t mind Cleverly but I expect he’ll try for London Mayor . Even the worst of the Tories is better than Reform .
Seb Coe is qlso a contender for London Mayor as Tory candidate
Is that for real, or are you just wish casting in order to keep Cleverly on the potential LOTO position?
Seems Saudi Arabia holds some cards. The US has never been so isolated.
President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials.
Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom”, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort.
A call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not resolve the issue, the two U.S. officials said, forcing the president to pause Project Freedom in order to restore U.S. military access to the critical airspace.-NBC News
Is Saudi policy to keep this going until Iran collapses?
The other alternative (which I am guessing is more likely) is that they want Trump to negotiate an end to the conflict, as it's bad for business. "Project Freedom" just promised that it would continue, without providing any certainty that shipping would resume anywhere near peacetime volumes.
Seriously, why are you still underestimating Kemi Badenoch?! Mike Smithson first spotted the trend of watching the party leaders personal polling even if it did not match or more importantly it was outperforming their party polling back in the run up to the 2007 Holyrood elections?!
Right now Kemi Badenoch is the most popular party leader in the polls and clearly outperforming Nigel Farage even if that has not yet fed into her party's headling polling. More than one pollster has picked up and commented on her rising popularity in focus groups. How on earth can you compare that to Keir Starmer's very clear and growing negative drag on Labour polling with his own irretrievable and really poor personal poll ratings?!
Why on earth would any party want to ditch a leader who was clearly more popular than their own party right now if they wanted to build on and stage a longer term come back in the run up to the next GE in 2/3 years time?! Why would you get rid of your biggest asset and one that was making voters finally give your new leader and party another look so early after such a historically massive GE defeat nearly two years ago?!
It was noticable that Kemi Badenoch was was all over the Scottish Conservative leaflets while Keir Starmer was invisible.
Focus groups are glorified subsamples.
OGH would tell you that Badenoch's not in Cameron's class, she's only looking good because Starmer's so dire (look at the share not the lead as Sir Bob Worcester used to say.)
At various points she's polling worse than the worst LOTOs in the last 50 years.
Corbyn never lost as many councillors at his worst than Badenoch did in 2025 and is likely to lose in 2026.
People say this is the mot unpopular government in history, so why isn't Kemi doing better?
The Tories are recovering from the worst defeat in their history - it was never going to be easy. Badenoch has at least shown some signs of improvement. She'd do better if she concentrated on money issues rather than cultural ones, the latter is stronger territory for Reform, and perhaps she needs a stronger shadow Chancellor to help with that.
I don't think the Tories are recovering from their worst defeat in their history. Their have shed around a quarter of that 24% share of the vote.
I am not convinced that there is benefit to changing Badenoch for another muppet. The problems run much deeper than that.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
Do Luckyguy or theProle have a vote today? They have both made Reform-friendly noises in the past.
I think the site is reasonably representative of middle class views*. For a brief period of political history - coinciding with the site's founding - this corresponded reasonably closely to 'representative of UK political views.' But this is no longer true and Reform voting is a bit of a niche pursuit among the middle classes.
*why this is is a deeper question. I suppose we middle class types have the freedom to sit at work checking in on pb.com in a way that Tesco delivery drivers or quarrymen or dustbin men do not.
Off topic, I have one of the most pleasant polling stations to vote in in the country. It is at the local cricket club: it is possible to vote, then go upstairs for a reasonably well-kept and reasonably priced pint of real ale and a low-key conversation while catching an only-vaguely-interested eye over whatever cricket is happening beneath the setting sun, or else sitting on a comfy seat looking at whatever is exciting Sky Sports today. Even so, I'm only 70% sure I'll bother. If that's true for reasonaly-engaged me with such a fine polling station, it's no wonder turnout is unimpressive.
Real ale and cricket? Pleasant? Is this a parody account?
Cookie will be crossdressing as an old maid as he pauses to cast his vote while cycling to communion.
Those living at the other end of the road to Cookie get to vote, watched over by Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Chorlton and the Wheelies, and their friends in our polling station.
As usual I won't tell you who I voted for. But I did have two votes and I split them. The local one was more right-wing but I voted for them because they popped round, identified a local area that needed improvement, and I thought they were decent and would at least try. The other one was more left wing and a bit spur-of-the-moment. The two were from different parties.
Is this one of those riddles? Is the answer, "If I were to ask the other candidate who you voted for, which candidate would they point to?"
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
What will save Badenoch is that there are no serious contenders, just has beens like Cleverly and the untried like Lam.
It is a choice worse than Labours options.
Labour are looking for the next PM though and Burnham outpolls all other political leaders of any party at present. The Conservatives just need a leader who can stop the party going extinct and Cleverly might get the anti Reform tactical votes for that
I am not convinced that there are in reality many anti Reform voters willing to vote Tory, but even if there were than that is not a great position. That support would be wafer thin and disappear quickly.
The Tories need a leader who can put out a clear vision of what they and the party are for, and what they want to achieve, not just what they are against. Labour are the same. There has to be some sort of ideological backbone.
Yes but out Reforming Reform just means a likely Reform takeover of the Tories. There is no point Kemi leading a Reform 2 party
You clearly are not listening to her and she is not Reform 2
Kemi is leading the new conservative party putting behind her the toxicity of Johnson and Truss
In the pub last night was asked "Why haven't we got any elections?" - this in deepest Leicestershire. Not sure if would be better if all local elections were at the same time as I think happens in for example France.
In contrast, I don't understand why councils have to have them all on the same day
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
What reform doing for you locally - the leaflets I’ve seen had nothing that was the people being elected could do anything about
It’s not “locally” that matters. It’s building momentum and self-belief so we can get a proper Hard Right takeover nationwide. And a Farage government we can all get behind
Like the PB Tories I hope Badenoch remains LOTO into the next election. Unlike PB Tories I don't see the transformation from also -ran to Prime Minister in waiting.
Like PB Tories I hope Starmer is ousted and sooner rather than later.
Does this make me a PB aTory?
What's interesting is that her scores are improving and she now leads the favourability pack (based on polling I saw). As the old adage about party vs leader confidence, you would expect the party numbers to follow at some point. No doubt the next few days will be bad, but expect a lot of the focus to be elsewhere.
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
I don’t mind Cleverly but I expect he’ll try for London Mayor . Even the worst of the Tories is better than Reform .
Seb Coe is qlso a contender for London Mayor as Tory candidate
Is that for real, or are you just wish casting in order to keep Cleverly on the potential LOTO position?
By 2028 Cleverly could be Tory leader anyway and Coe is about ten years younger than the US president
I know this might sound odd, but some people have suggested that maybe the US President is a bit too old. Indeed, some have even pointed out that he's a senile old fool who has done more damage to the world economy than any other President ever.
Seriously, why are you still underestimating Kemi Badenoch?! Mike Smithson first spotted the trend of watching the party leaders personal polling even if it did not match or more importantly it was outperforming their party polling back in the run up to the 2007 Holyrood elections?!
Right now Kemi Badenoch is the most popular party leader in the polls and clearly outperforming Nigel Farage even if that has not yet fed into her party's headling polling. More than one pollster has picked up and commented on her rising popularity in focus groups. How on earth can you compare that to Keir Starmer's very clear and growing negative drag on Labour polling with his own irretrievable and really poor personal poll ratings?!
Why on earth would any party want to ditch a leader who was clearly more popular than their own party right now if they wanted to build on and stage a longer term come back in the run up to the next GE in 2/3 years time?! Why would you get rid of your biggest asset and one that was making voters finally give your new leader and party another look so early after such a historically massive GE defeat nearly two years ago?!
It was noticable that Kemi Badenoch was was all over the Scottish Conservative leaflets while Keir Starmer was invisible.
Focus groups are glorified subsamples.
OGH would tell you that Badenoch's not in Cameron's class, she's only looking good because Starmer's so dire (look at the share not the lead as Sir Bob Worcester used to say.)
At various points she's polling worse than the worst LOTOs in the last 50 years.
Corbyn never lost as many councillors at his worst than Badenoch did in 2025 and is likely to lose in 2026.
People say this is the mot unpopular government in history, so why isn't Kemi doing better?
The Tories are recovering from the worst defeat in their history - it was never going to be easy. Badenoch has at least shown some signs of improvement. She'd do better if she concentrated on money issues rather than cultural ones, the latter is stronger territory for Reform, and perhaps she needs a stronger shadow Chancellor to help with that.
I don't think the Tories are recovering from their worst defeat in their history. Their have shed around a quarter of that 24% share of the vote.
I am not convinced that there is benefit to changing Badenoch for another muppet. The problems run much deeper than that.
Fair. It might be more accurate to say that they are trying to recover from the worst defeat in their history.
Labour have form for rallying around the leader (without any enthusiasm) in situations like this so I think it is still plausible that Starmer clings on (particularly if some think waiting for Burnham is the right move).
I don’t think Starmer has any intention of going willingly and I’m sure moves will be afoot to try and co-ordinate an early show of loyalty from the cabinet as there was earlier this year.
The key figures are clearly Rayner and Streeting. Rayner coming out against Starmer might not be immediately fatal given she has no cabinet role but it certainly will destabilise matters in the PLP. Streeting resigning/launching a challenge in the next 24-48 hours will mean it is on, and I’d expect Starmer will have to go fairly soon after that
Wes Streeting is hardly going to be popular with those who *don't* want to go through a whole load of upheaval... Under such circumstances I think any one of the pack would have an advantage, my money being on Cooper. Wielding the knife is generally considered a barrier to winning the subsequent contest when it is the Tories, why is it not apparently not so with Labour?
I agree that if Streeting triggers a contest it seems inconceivable that there won’t be a reaction to try and find an alternative candidate. That assumes that he doesn’t already have the cabinet sewn up, of course, but I suspect there’s still enough opposition there to try and find an alternative. I am a broken record on this but if I was Miliband, Cooper, Healey in this scenario I might be looking at installing phone lines as a “reluctant” unity candidate…
Surely the role of the union block vote makes it different? You have a significant percentage cast by very political actors who have no direct stake in becoming PM themselves
There isn't a union block vote for party leader. Trade Union members get a vote. Though there have been some questions raised about literature sent with the ballot papers in an attempt to encourage the vote in one direction over another.
I have no interest in digging into the entrails of the Labour Party constitution but didn’t Milliband win because of the union support? May well have changed since then
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I feel for your dilemma! Based on your previous comments I'm not sure whether I would fear the Newham Independents more than Labour but I think I would. I wouldn't vote Green under current management (though I have in the past), so reluctantly I would probably vote Labour with my other 2 votes as the least worst option even though they don't deserve them.
April data highlighted another challenging month for the UK construction sector as business activity decreased and cost inflation intensified.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index™ (PMI®) – an index tracking changes in total industry activity – registered 39.7 in April, down from 45.6 in March and indicative of a sharp fall in overall business activity. Reduced output has been seen in each month since January 2025 and the latest reading was the weakest for five months.
Civil engineering activity (index at 35.3) registered the steepest decline, followed by house building (38.2). Commercial work (42.7) showed some resilience in comparison to elsewhere in the construction sector, although the latest reduction was the fastest recorded so far in 2026.
Seriously, why are you still underestimating Kemi Badenoch?! Mike Smithson first spotted the trend of watching the party leaders personal polling even if it did not match or more importantly it was outperforming their party polling back in the run up to the 2007 Holyrood elections?!
Right now Kemi Badenoch is the most popular party leader in the polls and clearly outperforming Nigel Farage even if that has not yet fed into her party's headling polling. More than one pollster has picked up and commented on her rising popularity in focus groups. How on earth can you compare that to Keir Starmer's very clear and growing negative drag on Labour polling with his own irretrievable and really poor personal poll ratings?!
Why on earth would any party want to ditch a leader who was clearly more popular than their own party right now if they wanted to build on and stage a longer term come back in the run up to the next GE in 2/3 years time?! Why would you get rid of your biggest asset and one that was making voters finally give your new leader and party another look so early after such a historically massive GE defeat nearly two years ago?!
It was noticable that Kemi Badenoch was was all over the Scottish Conservative leaflets while Keir Starmer was invisible.
Focus groups are glorified subsamples.
OGH would tell you that Badenoch's not in Cameron's class, she's only looking good because Starmer's so dire (look at the share not the lead as Sir Bob Worcester used to say.)
At various points she's polling worse than the worst LOTOs in the last 50 years.
Corbyn never lost as many councillors at his worst than Badenoch did in 2025 and is likely to lose in 2026.
People say this is the mot unpopular government in history, so why isn't Kemi doing better?
The Tories are recovering from the worst defeat in their history - it was never going to be easy. Badenoch has at least shown some signs of improvement. She'd do better if she concentrated on money issues rather than cultural ones, the latter is stronger territory for Reform, and perhaps she needs a stronger shadow Chancellor to help with that.
The "signs of improvement" are that her party has *fallen* to a range of 17-21% in the polls. *Her* ratings are good-ish, but her *party*s are not.
The Tory opinion poll shares are a bit better now than they were at their nadir ~8 months ago.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
I am not convinced that there is benefit to changing Badenoch for another muppet. The problems run much deeper than that.
There is literally no point to the tories' continued existence. The Fukkers serve up the kind of mindless cruelty and ignorance that tory voters love but with a lot more conviction and authenticity.
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
I don’t mind Cleverly but I expect he’ll try for London Mayor . Even the worst of the Tories is better than Reform .
Seb Coe is qlso a contender for London Mayor as Tory candidate
Is that for real, or are you just wish casting in order to keep Cleverly on the potential LOTO position?
By 2028 Cleverly could be Tory leader anyway and Coe is about ten years younger than the US president
You have the weirdest obsession with Cleverly. He’s not ever going to lead the Tory party, if they have an iota of intelligence left. He is the epitome of the past, and that’s not what you want, it’s neither practical nor sensible
It would be like the Labour Party replacing Starmer with the cadaver of Mo Mowlam. How would you even do it? Where is she buried? How would you wheel her mouldering corpse into Cabinet meetings?
And what if she was cremated? Where would she sit in the Commons, the fucking ash tray by the Speaker’s chair?
As usual I won't tell you who I voted for. But I did have two votes and I split them. The local one was more right-wing but I voted for them because they popped round, identified a local area that needed improvement, and I thought they were decent and would at least try. The other one was more left wing and a bit spur-of-the-moment. The two were from different parties.
Is this one of those riddles? Is the answer, "If I were to ask the other candidate who you voted for, which candidate would they point to?"
Yes. I voted for the West Cretan and the East Cretan parties. Or the other way around?
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
Do Luckyguy or theProle have a vote today? They have both made Reform-friendly noises in the past.
I think the site is reasonably representative of middle class views*. For a brief period of political history - coinciding with the site's founding - this corresponded reasonably closely to 'representative of UK political views.' But this is no longer true and Reform voting is a bit of a niche pursuit among the middle classes.
*why this is is a deeper question. I suppose we middle class types have the freedom to sit at work checking in on pb.com in a way that Tesco delivery drivers or quarrymen or dustbin men do not.
Reform seem to me to be genuinely unscrupulous, basically appealing to people who are angry, never mind the details. The equivalent of the noisy bloke in the bar who you avoid. If we were angry in an inchoate way, it might appeal, but then we probably wouldn't be chatting on PB.
Labour have form for rallying around the leader (without any enthusiasm) in situations like this so I think it is still plausible that Starmer clings on (particularly if some think waiting for Burnham is the right move).
I don’t think Starmer has any intention of going willingly and I’m sure moves will be afoot to try and co-ordinate an early show of loyalty from the cabinet as there was earlier this year.
The key figures are clearly Rayner and Streeting. Rayner coming out against Starmer might not be immediately fatal given she has no cabinet role but it certainly will destabilise matters in the PLP. Streeting resigning/launching a challenge in the next 24-48 hours will mean it is on, and I’d expect Starmer will have to go fairly soon after that
Wes Streeting is hardly going to be popular with those who *don't* want to go through a whole load of upheaval... Under such circumstances I think any one of the pack would have an advantage, my money being on Cooper. Wielding the knife is generally considered a barrier to winning the subsequent contest when it is the Tories, why is it not apparently not so with Labour?
I agree that if Streeting triggers a contest it seems inconceivable that there won’t be a reaction to try and find an alternative candidate. That assumes that he doesn’t already have the cabinet sewn up, of course, but I suspect there’s still enough opposition there to try and find an alternative. I am a broken record on this but if I was Miliband, Cooper, Healey in this scenario I might be looking at installing phone lines as a “reluctant” unity candidate…
Surely the role of the union block vote makes it different? You have a significant percentage cast by very political actors who have no direct stake in becoming PM themselves
There isn't a union block vote for party leader. Trade Union members get a vote. Though there have been some questions raised about literature sent with the ballot papers in an attempt to encourage the vote in one direction over another.
I have no interest in digging into the entrails of the Labour Party constitution but didn’t Milliband win because of the union support? May well have changed since then
Yes, Miliband won in part due to union support, but it wasn't a block vote, it was the vote of union members. Your comment suggested you believed the trade union third of the vote was cast by union leaders, which is not the case.
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
I have two pegs on my nose today as I vote PC. One peg to punish Starmer and one peg to punish Reform.
So many people in this election voting against rather than for. Once I can finally be arsed to leave home I will be voting Labour to keep out Green.
Indeed - it is the first time I have ever cast a vote against a party, rather than a positive vote for the candidates of my choice (even though a couple of times the rationale behind my choice at local level has been a bit spurious).
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
I don’t mind Cleverly but I expect he’ll try for London Mayor . Even the worst of the Tories is better than Reform .
Seb Coe is qlso a contender for London Mayor as Tory candidate
Is that for real, or are you just wish casting in order to keep Cleverly on the potential LOTO position?
By 2028 Cleverly could be Tory leader anyway and Coe is about ten years younger than the US president
You have the weirdest obsession with Cleverly. He’s not ever going to lead the Tory party, if they have an iota of intelligence left. He is the epitome of the past, and that’s not what you want, it’s neither practical nor sensible
It would be like the Labour Party replacing Starmer with the cadaver of Mo Mowlam. How would you even do it? Where is she buried? How would you wheel her mouldering corpse into Cabinet meetings?
And what if she was cremated? Where would she sit in the Commons, the fucking ash tray by the Speaker’s chair?
It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous
If the Tories are still polling third this time next year it won't be. Cleverly could at least gain more anti Reform tactical votes from Labour and LD and Green voters in Tory seats than Kemi. If the Tories are ahead of Reform again or ahead of Labour though then yes Kemi is secure
Seriously, why are you still underestimating Kemi Badenoch?! Mike Smithson first spotted the trend of watching the party leaders personal polling even if it did not match or more importantly it was outperforming their party polling back in the run up to the 2007 Holyrood elections?!
Right now Kemi Badenoch is the most popular party leader in the polls and clearly outperforming Nigel Farage even if that has not yet fed into her party's headling polling. More than one pollster has picked up and commented on her rising popularity in focus groups. How on earth can you compare that to Keir Starmer's very clear and growing negative drag on Labour polling with his own irretrievable and really poor personal poll ratings?!
Why on earth would any party want to ditch a leader who was clearly more popular than their own party right now if they wanted to build on and stage a longer term come back in the run up to the next GE in 2/3 years time?! Why would you get rid of your biggest asset and one that was making voters finally give your new leader and party another look so early after such a historically massive GE defeat nearly two years ago?!
It was noticable that Kemi Badenoch was was all over the Scottish Conservative leaflets while Keir Starmer was invisible.
Focus groups are glorified subsamples.
OGH would tell you that Badenoch's not in Cameron's class, she's only looking good because Starmer's so dire (look at the share not the lead as Sir Bob Worcester used to say.)
At various points she's polling worse than the worst LOTOs in the last 50 years.
Corbyn never lost as many councillors at his worst than Badenoch did in 2025 and is likely to lose in 2026.
People say this is the mot unpopular government in history, so why isn't Kemi doing better?
I am going to answer your last question first and I am going to disagree with you... Kemi Badenoch is doing better than previous Conservative leaders at this stage in the Parliamentary cycle after a defeat. I don't remember William Hague, IDS, Michael Howard achieving the most popular leadership ratings so soon after a Conservative GE drubbing at a GE and none of which which were as historical bad as the result in 2024!
And Kemi didn't have a bad night at the local elections in 2025 so soon after being elected and when the public did not even know her or want to know her as the latest Conservative party leader, no that result was on Johnson, Truss & Co. Of course she was going to poll worse than previous leaders after such an historical Conservative defeat in 2024, so all the more commendable she as a party leader in the circumstances has managed to get the public noticing and listening to her to the point she has turned it around and increased her personal polling to the extent she has despite it not yet feeding into her party's polling figures yet in such a short time.
And I disagree with you on the claim that OGH would be telling you or anyone she was not in Cameron's class because she is only looking good because Starmer is so dire, I suspect that Cameron's personal polling got a lift from Gordon Brown proving to be a poor party Leader and PM too! I think that OGH would have been intrigued by her personal polling rise over the last six months and enough to point it out and highlight it as something to watch and ponder... Especially as Reform's polling peaked and Farage's personal popularity started to recede. He would have noticed and picked up on this.
I always remember that there were only three people on PB back in the day for a couple of years who thought that George Osborne was the most underated UK politician at the time, I was one of them and OGH was another, and he like me didn't rate Gordon Brown either. I don't know who your contact is in the Conservative Parliamentary party right now, but they are a dud and you need to find a new one because their predictions are proving totally unfounded and quite the opposite.
When even the over all party polling is not great but you have a party leader who is proving a poll rating hit and your elected members and candidates want to have their picture taken with you and print it all over their campaign literature its usually a good sign that they see you as a voter winner not a dud.... Ask Anas Sawar why he has blanked Keir Starmer and not let him near the Scottish Labour party's Holyrood campaign.
Green leader Zack Polanski went viral this week for all the wrong reasons, Kemi Badenoch went viral for all the right reasons and Farage, well he has been ducking and diving all the awkward donation questions and Keir Starmer is living in the Twilight zone along with John Swinney trying to avoid voter anger when they would prefer voter apathy.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
Interesting that the latest YouGov MRP for Scotland has the Greens closer to where instinctively I thought they would be - 16 seats.
But I still think Reform will get over 20 based on anecdotal chatter from the Highlsnds/NE/West Lothian. And the SNP won’t make 60.
I wonder if there is a shy tendency for Reform voters ... 20 seats is perfectly plausible, 4 in some regions but may struggle for 2 in Glasgow/Edinburgh. Can't see them taking many constituencies, but could be some surprises if low turnout.
I think 16 would be nearer the upper end of Green seats, theres one or two constituencies they could have stood in and performed very well, Kelvin would be a strong chance if Patrick Harvie had stood and it was old boundaries. They'll get a seat in South, but wont get 2, most other regions should deliver 2 Greens.
Think I said 58 for SNP in the predictions contest, but can see them down to 55 or slightly lower if they don't poll well in Aberdeenshire and Highlands. I think the Tories can hang on in the south, but their list will be decimated. Less sure about Labour, not a good sign for them from Jackie Baillie yesterday
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
I've gone off tactical voting at an individual level - with one vote it's unlikely to make a difference, and it takes about one millisecond for the recipient to "explain" the support as a rejection of one's actual preference.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
It speaks to a lack of political maturity and something she needs to get better at. I too think she is too knee-jerk in her reactions and she would be much better served coming to a considered and clever tactical position. Indeed waiting before engaging would probably allow her to create wedge issues with Farage. The knee jerk with Iran was an example of a low point - if she’d been more circumspect out of the gate she wouldn’t be getting it thrown back at her every PMQs.
I like the fact that she’s up for a debate and I think we need more politicians who are prepared to really argue for their points of view. But if she’s going to properly break through she needs to really focus on her philosophy and policy in the next 12 months and know which battles to fight.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
I've gone off tactical voting at an individual level - with one vote it's unlikely to make a difference, and it takes about one millisecond for the recipient to "explain" the support as a rejection of one's actual preference.
It's true than one vote is unlikely to make a difference, although round these parts, we're still scarred by the 1990 Hampstead Town ward result (2 seats):
Conservative Maureen Braun 643 Conservative Rita Pomfret 620 Liberal Democrats David Brierley 619 Liberal Democrats John Dickie 549 Labour John Saynor 432 Labour Anna Wernher 397 Green John Penney 219
Off topic, I have one of the most pleasant polling stations to vote in in the country. It is at the local cricket club: it is possible to vote, then go upstairs for a reasonably well-kept and reasonably priced pint of real ale and a low-key conversation while catching an only-vaguely-interested eye over whatever cricket is happening beneath the setting sun, or else sitting on a comfy seat looking at whatever is exciting Sky Sports today. Even so, I'm only 70% sure I'll bother. If that's true for reasonaly-engaged me with such a fine polling station, it's no wonder turnout is unimpressive.
Real ale and cricket? Pleasant? Is this a parody account?
Cookie will be crossdressing as an old maid as he pauses to cast his vote while cycling to communion.
Those living at the other end of the road to Cookie get to vote, watched over by Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Chorlton and the Wheelies, and their friends in our polling station.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
It speaks to a lack of political maturity and something she needs to get better at. I too think she is too knee-jerk in her reactions and she would be much better served coming to a considered and clever tactical position. Indeed waiting before engaging would probably allow her to create wedge issues with Farage. The knee jerk with Iran was an example of a low point - if she’d been more circumspect out of the gate she wouldn’t be getting it thrown back at her every PMQs.
I like the fact that she’s up for a debate and I think we need more politicians who are prepared to really argue for their points of view. But if she’s going to properly break through she needs to really focus on her philosophy and policy in the next 12 months and know which battles to fight.
It isn't just Badenoch and Polanski that succumb to an instantaneous thought free response to what is in the news.
It would be refreshing to have a politician say "I need to get to the bottom of what is going on before responding in an interview", but I do not think that would go down well in out attention deficited world.
Off topic, I have one of the most pleasant polling stations to vote in in the country. It is at the local cricket club: it is possible to vote, then go upstairs for a reasonably well-kept and reasonably priced pint of real ale and a low-key conversation while catching an only-vaguely-interested eye over whatever cricket is happening beneath the setting sun, or else sitting on a comfy seat looking at whatever is exciting Sky Sports today. Even so, I'm only 70% sure I'll bother. If that's true for reasonaly-engaged me with such a fine polling station, it's no wonder turnout is unimpressive.
Real ale and cricket? Pleasant? Is this a parody account?
Cookie will be crossdressing as an old maid as he pauses to cast his vote while cycling to communion.
Alas no cross-dressing today and certainly no church, but chances are I will go there on my bike (for reasons connected to the possibility of alcohol afterwards).
I diverted on my bike to waste my vote as always, only observation would be what an absolute mess of gridlocked beeping SUVs and other private vehicles on those roads. Are people really that stupid that they get in their car and do that every weekday morning?
I note that we are 2/3 of the way to John Major's quote.
He said "Fifty years from now .." in 1993. That is 33 years ago.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
I see a range of opinion here - I haven't commented, I'm with you I think she's doing OK and I don't see anyone else who would be better. She isn't perfect by any means but has a spark, which is good in opposition, and like others I think the main problem is the brand was trashed and changing leader does nothing to resolve that. The Tories do need to use their time in the doldrums to work out what they are for; I don't think Badenoch has a clear idea but nor does anyone else.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
I'm not voting Ref, but only because there are no elections in my area.
I did fill the car up what was briefly the "Reform filling station" this morning (alas no longer with a Farage discount, but still the cheapest in the area by 2p/l).
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
I've gone off tactical voting at an individual level - with one vote it's unlikely to make a difference, and it takes about one millisecond for the recipient to "explain" the support as a rejection of one's actual preference.
It's true than one vote is unlikely to make a difference, although round these parts, we're still scarred by the 1990 Hampstead Town ward result (2 seats):
Conservative Maureen Braun 643 Conservative Rita Pomfret 620 Liberal Democrats David Brierley 619 Liberal Democrats John Dickie 549 Labour John Saynor 432 Labour Anna Wernher 397 Green John Penney 219
I met several Labour supporters in Winchester in 1997 who proudly told me their family's tactical votes had tipped the balance for the LD victory by 2 votes!
So, big day. You should do it properly and I have. Read all the leaflets (carefully), researched the candidates, chatted to any who knocked me up, gave due weight to local issues, who's pledging to fix the crater-sized pothole near Tesco, who's best placed to pollard the trees on my road, the competing positions on the hot potato of the proposed new bus lane (I'm in the yes camp), then once fully clued up, the final step of deciding who to vote for. Which for me this time is going to be Labour.
I will vote tactically for Labour today. I derive no pleasure from this vote whatsoever, but it is more important to me that the Greens don’t get a foothold in this ward. My vote at a GE would not be Labour right now.
As an aside, they should probably ask you to surrender your phone before walking into the polling booth to preserve the secret ballot.
It's far too easy to "Whatsapp me your voting slip or else" and even if that happens rarely it's one time too many.
That would probably put off those under 30 who do vote from bothering to do so.
You put it down for 2 minutes whilst you vote.
That's it.
Community coercion relies on people being forced to take pictures of their ballot papers to confirm they've voted the "right" way. Making people leave their phones with the volunteers would be a good step to restoring voting privacy.
The best part about it will be how much the Green party screams about it but won't ever say why they're against it other than vague nonsense about disenfranchisement the same as Labour did with voter ID.
Well I approve of the sentiment, but I can't see how you'd enforce it. "Please surrender your phone". "I don't habe it with me." "OK". *vote* *click* *send to community-leader*
One way round this is to provide people with a dummy extra ballot that they can take a photo of, to satisfy the person trying to coerce them, while they put their true voting intention on a genuine ballot paper.
It doesn't have to be that complicated.
All you need is to ask people to surrender their phones whilst voting, and make it widely know that you are doing so. Anyone who is being coerced into a vote can cheerfully hand their phone over, vote, then tell whoever is attempting to coerces them that they had their phone taken off them before they got to the polling booth. You don't actually have to worry all that much about people smuggling phones into the polling booth, just make it so those who don't want to take pictures have a plausible reason why they can't.
Anyway, all this is pointless whilst the scandal of mass postal voting exists; in that there is no secret ballot, and for that reason alone I would restrict it to cases of genuine medical need.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
What reform doing for you locally - the leaflets I’ve seen had nothing that was the people being elected could do anything about
It’s not “locally” that matters. It’s building momentum and self-belief so we can get a proper Hard Right takeover nationwide. And a Farage government we can all get behind
Your latest obsession is no more convincing than any of the earlier ones. I'm beginning to think you're a serial bandwaggoneer.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
I've gone off tactical voting at an individual level - with one vote it's unlikely to make a difference, and it takes about one millisecond for the recipient to "explain" the support as a rejection of one's actual preference.
It's true than one vote is unlikely to make a difference, although round these parts, we're still scarred by the 1990 Hampstead Town ward result (2 seats):
Conservative Maureen Braun 643 Conservative Rita Pomfret 620 Liberal Democrats David Brierley 619 Liberal Democrats John Dickie 549 Labour John Saynor 432 Labour Anna Wernher 397 Green John Penney 219
I used to know both Brierley and Dickie, and am not sure I would want to vote for either of them.
I will vote tactically for Labour today. I derive no pleasure from this vote whatsoever, but it is more important to me that the Greens don’t get a foothold in this ward. My vote at a GE would not be Labour right now.
Reluctant or with gusto, informed or flippant, head or heart - they all count the same.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
I've gone off tactical voting at an individual level - with one vote it's unlikely to make a difference, and it takes about one millisecond for the recipient to "explain" the support as a rejection of one's actual preference.
It's true than one vote is unlikely to make a difference, although round these parts, we're still scarred by the 1990 Hampstead Town ward result (2 seats):
Conservative Maureen Braun 643 Conservative Rita Pomfret 620 Liberal Democrats David Brierley 619 Liberal Democrats John Dickie 549 Labour John Saynor 432 Labour Anna Wernher 397 Green John Penney 219
I met several Labour supporters in Winchester in 1997 who proudly told me their family's tactical votes had tipped the balance for the LD victory by 2 votes!
I voted for Ed Davey when I lived in Surbiton during the 1997 GE . He won the seat by 52 votes !
I’ve spent most of my life in Lib Dem/Tory marginals . I’ve now ended up in Eastbourne so that continues .
Hopefully the Reform Tory vote can split favourably here and the Lib Dem’s can gain East Sussex County Council .
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
What reform doing for you locally - the leaflets I’ve seen had nothing that was the people being elected could do anything about
It’s not “locally” that matters. It’s building momentum and self-belief so we can get a proper Hard Right takeover nationwide. And a Farage government we can all get behind
Your latest obsession is no more convincing than any of the earlier ones. I'm beginning to think you're a serial bandwaggoneer.
I will vote tactically for Labour today. I derive no pleasure from this vote whatsoever, but it is more important to me that the Greens don’t get a foothold in this ward. My vote at a GE would not be Labour right now.
Reluctant or with gusto, informed or flippant, head or heart - they all count the same.
Careful, you’ll make me rethink it! It’s honestly the hardest vote I have made in any election. I don’t like tactical voting as a rule, but there are bigger factors at play this time.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
I often wonder if the same Centrists Dads would be getting it totally wrong that first couple of years when David Cameron became Conservative leader and he was pictured with the huskies.. Look how many of them totally underestimated his then wing man who over saw his leadership campaign up against the then nailed on favourite David Davis. The day Theresa May became Conservative Leader and PM she and her team didn't allow George Osborne the dignity of resigning from his post as Chancellor, no he was sacked and I said that day it was her first and probable her biggest mistake. I always remember OGH agreeing with that verdict.
She didn't have an elected wing man who was as over their own brief at No11 or any other Cabinet post but also all the other departments to the extent he saw the issues with her own two key Spads at the Home Office but more importantly Michael Gove's Spad Dominic Cummings.. And he was proved right.
Theresa May's advisers that Osborne locked heads with advised her to go back on her word about calling an early election and then oversaw that disastrous manifesto and campaign leaving her a much weakened PM with no majority during the endless Parliamentary Brexit battles at Westminster until she finally throw the towel in and stepped down.
And that has been a problem for Keir Starmer too, he has been too reliant on unelected Spads and had no loyal base of elected senior Cabinet Ministers to advise him or protect him. Instead he is swinging in the wind more rudderless as he has no leadership skills or natural support base within his party, and now so weak his Cabinet and backbenchers are exploiting that and getting in their own demands while getting him to carry the can and making him look weaker by the day. And yet he keeps throwing everyone else who gets in the poltical cross fire under a bus, at some point he is going to run out of people blame and he already has no elected allies to lean on.
Interesting that the latest YouGov MRP for Scotland has the Greens closer to where instinctively I thought they would be - 16 seats.
But I still think Reform will get over 20 based on anecdotal chatter from the Highlsnds/NE/West Lothian. And the SNP won’t make 60.
I wonder if there is a shy tendency for Reform voters ... 20 seats is perfectly plausible, 4 in some regions but may struggle for 2 in Glasgow/Edinburgh. Can't see them taking many constituencies, but could be some surprises if low turnout.
I think 16 would be nearer the upper end of Green seats, theres one or two constituencies they could have stood in and performed very well, Kelvin would be a strong chance if Patrick Harvie had stood and it was old boundaries. They'll get a seat in South, but wont get 2, most other regions should deliver 2 Greens.
Think I said 58 for SNP in the predictions contest, but can see them down to 55 or slightly lower if they don't poll well in Aberdeenshire and Highlands. I think the Tories can hang on in the south, but their list will be decimated. Less sure about Labour, not a good sign for them from Jackie Baillie yesterday
I've got Reform winning 2 constituencies (Banffshire & Buchan Coast and Ayr) plus 19 list seats. - 21 in total SNP on 60 (no list seats)
So, big day. You should do it properly and I have. Read all the leaflets (carefully), researched the candidates, chatted to any who knocked me up, gave due weight to local issues, who's pledging to fix the crater-sized pothole near Tesco, who's best placed to pollard the trees on my road, the competing positions on the hot potato of the proposed new bus lane (I'm in the yes camp), then once fully clued up, the final step of deciding who to vote for. Which for me this time is going to be Labour.
Opportunity would be a fine thing. We have five candidates: Cons, Green, Lab, LibDem & Reform. At my house we've had three 'communications'; an excellent, formative one from the Greens, referring to local issues, a rather desperate one from the Conservatives and one from Reform which mentioned no local issues whatsoever and indeed didn't even mention the candidates name.
As an aside, they should probably ask you to surrender your phone before walking into the polling booth to preserve the secret ballot.
It's far too easy to "Whatsapp me your voting slip or else" and even if that happens rarely it's one time too many.
That would probably put off those under 30 who do vote from bothering to do so.
You put it down for 2 minutes whilst you vote.
That's it.
Community coercion relies on people being forced to take pictures of their ballot papers to confirm they've voted the "right" way. Making people leave their phones with the volunteers would be a good step to restoring voting privacy.
The best part about it will be how much the Green party screams about it but won't ever say why they're against it other than vague nonsense about disenfranchisement the same as Labour did with voter ID.
Well I approve of the sentiment, but I can't see how you'd enforce it. "Please surrender your phone". "I don't habe it with me." "OK". *vote* *click* *send to community-leader*
It gives those people some method of being able to keep their ballot secret without needing to stand up to their husbands or "community leaders" themselves. They can just say they had to do it. Again it's not going to solve all of the issues but there will definitely be a reduction in coercion overall.
Postal ballots are the real problem IMO and even though I use postal voting (though I forgot to post my ballot this time so I'll need to go and drop it into the polling station anyway) the system should be restricted to essentially people with severe physical disabilities that couldn't otherwise vote because the journey to the polling station is too taxing.
You have a bizarre attitude to the frailty of women. It's not only insulting it also paints a picture which has no bearing on reality. Indeed if you do know women who are dragged kicking and screaming to have their vote squeezed out of them I suggest you call by a social worker on your way to the station
Interesting that the latest YouGov MRP for Scotland has the Greens closer to where instinctively I thought they would be - 16 seats.
But I still think Reform will get over 20 based on anecdotal chatter from the Highlsnds/NE/West Lothian. And the SNP won’t make 60.
I wonder if there is a shy tendency for Reform voters ... 20 seats is perfectly plausible, 4 in some regions but may struggle for 2 in Glasgow/Edinburgh. Can't see them taking many constituencies, but could be some surprises if low turnout.
I think 16 would be nearer the upper end of Green seats, theres one or two constituencies they could have stood in and performed very well, Kelvin would be a strong chance if Patrick Harvie had stood and it was old boundaries. They'll get a seat in South, but wont get 2, most other regions should deliver 2 Greens.
Think I said 58 for SNP in the predictions contest, but can see them down to 55 or slightly lower if they don't poll well in Aberdeenshire and Highlands. I think the Tories can hang on in the south, but their list will be decimated. Less sure about Labour, not a good sign for them from Jackie Baillie yesterday
I've got Reform winning 2 constituencies (Banffshire & Buchan Coast and Ayr) plus 19 list seats. - 21 in total SNP on 60 (no list seats)
Refuk winning BBC would be terrible for them. People then realise their policies are literal self-harm for us.
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
Maybe he thinks he can gain more anti-semitic votes than he loses. The strategy seemed to work (to a point) for Corbyn
On the subject of anti-semitism, would any of these images be tolerated of any other Jewish politician?
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Perfectly ok as we have been assured on here that Polanski has a 'hooked nose'
He does though. Its tricky for cartoonists who will exaggerate features of the subject for comic effect. I'd argue Polanski's features of note are (1) his gap in his teeth and (2) a rather large nose.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
What reform doing for you locally - the leaflets I’ve seen had nothing that was the people being elected could do anything about
It’s not “locally” that matters. It’s building momentum and self-belief so we can get a proper Hard Right takeover nationwide. And a Farage government we can all get behind
Your latest obsession is no more convincing than any of the earlier ones. I'm beginning to think you're a serial bandwaggoneer.
As an aside, they should probably ask you to surrender your phone before walking into the polling booth to preserve the secret ballot.
It's far too easy to "Whatsapp me your voting slip or else" and even if that happens rarely it's one time too many.
That would probably put off those under 30 who do vote from bothering to do so.
You put it down for 2 minutes whilst you vote.
That's it.
Community coercion relies on people being forced to take pictures of their ballot papers to confirm they've voted the "right" way. Making people leave their phones with the volunteers would be a good step to restoring voting privacy.
The best part about it will be how much the Green party screams about it but won't ever say why they're against it other than vague nonsense about disenfranchisement the same as Labour did with voter ID.
Well I approve of the sentiment, but I can't see how you'd enforce it. "Please surrender your phone". "I don't habe it with me." "OK". *vote* *click* *send to community-leader*
It gives those people some method of being able to keep their ballot secret without needing to stand up to their husbands or "community leaders" themselves. They can just say they had to do it. Again it's not going to solve all of the issues but there will definitely be a reduction in coercion overall.
Postal ballots are the real problem IMO and even though I use postal voting (though I forgot to post my ballot this time so I'll need to go and drop it into the polling station anyway) the system should be restricted to essentially people with severe physical disabilities that couldn't otherwise vote because the journey to the polling station is too taxing.
You have a bizarre attitude to the frailty of women. It's not only insulting it also paints a picture which has no bearing on reality. Indeed if you do know women who are dragged kicking and screaming to have their vote squeezed out of them I suggest you call by a social worker on your way to the station
Postal voting should be for those who need it, not for those who simply can't be bothered to go to the polling station.
I'm not sure I can convince myself to go through with voting LibDem. Even though it's the only logical choice here. Is tactical voting more prevalent than ever on here this time?
Yes. I voted against Reform by voting for the Havering Residents Association, who are more conservative than the Conservatives (and mostly ex-Conservatives) who I wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole. Things are so bad I even considered voting Tory, but they have clearly given up in this ward whereas the RA's have continued fighting it hard. I still expect to wake up with 3 Reform councillors and a Reform council though.
Huzzah!
Am I the only PBer openly voting Reform today? If so it shows how badly skewed this site is becoming. Reform are leading the polls and have done for many months. Indeed in recent days it looks like their decline has halted and they’re slowly improving again - as they remain in front
Yet just one PBer votes for them? Tsk
Do Luckyguy or theProle have a vote today? They have both made Reform-friendly noises in the past.
I think the site is reasonably representative of middle class views*. For a brief period of political history - coinciding with the site's founding - this corresponded reasonably closely to 'representative of UK political views.' But this is no longer true and Reform voting is a bit of a niche pursuit among the middle classes.
*why this is is a deeper question. I suppose we middle class types have the freedom to sit at work checking in on pb.com in a way that Tesco delivery drivers or quarrymen or dustbin men do not.
Reform seem to me to be genuinely unscrupulous, basically appealing to people who are angry, never mind the details. The equivalent of the noisy bloke in the bar who you avoid. If we were angry in an inchoate way, it might appeal, but then we probably wouldn't be chatting on PB.
Yep. I've met plenty of Reform enthusiasts and a big proportion are exactly like that. I'm glad they are under-represented on here. If they weren't the quality of the site would really suffer.
All three votes to the Conservatives and Unionists in Hammersmith and Fulham for me.
Very little evidence of the local elections at all here. The only posters I have seen are for the Greens, haphazardly stuck to the inside of living room windows. We only received one leaflet and that was from the Tories.
Is the Conservative party VONC threshold still 15% of MPs? I heard talk of them possibly raising it to 30% but browsing around, I'm unsure if it ever came to pass. A higher bar would be very relevant to whether Badenoch faced a challenge or not.
30% now.
Once your over that bar you're essentially gone, as previous VONCs have shown, but it will take far longer to get to VONC. Badenoch survives by my reckoning.
In a way the triggering of a leadership contest is probably slightly easier now in the Labour party, getting 20% to rally around a first mover contender. And if there is a contest I think Starmer is gone in a way that Corbyn wasn't due to a lack of remaining base at that point.
A similar height of bar between the two parties though.
An issue that was flagged up to me recently is that plenty of Tory MPs don't trust Bob Blackman in the VONC process.
Unlike Graham Brady who was considered impartial*, Blackman will be on the blower to Kemi to let her know a letter has arrived and who has sent it.
So if she is going to be ousted, Tory MPs will wait until they know they have the numbers, so it might come as a big surprise were it to happen.
*Brady would only tell the vice-chair of the '22 that another letter has arrived without telling them who sent the letter.
Kemi isn't going anywhere.
Good morning
Kemi is the best person in the party to take it to GE29
Nobody else is close despite the constant noise she is toast
Just look at her rising ratings and her support within her party and I see no evidence she not only has the support, but would win a vonc if her mps were foolish enough to go down that road
The one thing she needs is loyallty and not another idiotic leader fight
I agree it would be crazy to try and remove her now . Eventually her good approval ratings will transfer over to vote share especially as Reform become more toxic . They can’t avoid proper scrutiny forever . I disagree with Badenoch on almost everything but she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
She has taken the Conservative Party in entirely the wrong direction. Out Faraging, Farage will not save One Nation Conservatism.
This is why by comparison to Badenoch, HYUFD is right about Cleverly.
I don’t mind Cleverly but I expect he’ll try for London Mayor . Even the worst of the Tories is better than Reform .
Seb Coe is qlso a contender for London Mayor as Tory candidate
Is that for real, or are you just wish casting in order to keep Cleverly on the potential LOTO position?
By 2028 Cleverly could be Tory leader anyway and Coe is about ten years younger than the US president
You have the weirdest obsession with Cleverly. He’s not ever going to lead the Tory party, if they have an iota of intelligence left. He is the epitome of the past, and that’s not what you want, it’s neither practical nor sensible
It would be like the Labour Party replacing Starmer with the cadaver of Mo Mowlam. How would you even do it? Where is she buried? How would you wheel her mouldering corpse into Cabinet meetings?
And what if she was cremated? Where would she sit in the Commons, the fucking ash tray by the Speaker’s chair?
It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous
If the Tories are still polling third this time next year it won't be. Cleverly could at least gain more anti Reform tactical votes from Labour and LD and Green voters in Tory seats than Kemi. If the Tories are ahead of Reform again or ahead of Labour though then yes Kemi is secure
I think that James Cleverely is going to run for London Mayor and I think he would be in with a bloody good chance of winning it as well as doing a really good job in the role. He realises like Robert Jenrick did before he jumped ship to Reform that the window of another Conservative leadership contest this side of the next GE has closed with Kemi Badenoch's increasing popularity as party leader within and outwith the party.
So, big day. You should do it properly and I have. Read all the leaflets (carefully), researched the candidates, chatted to any who knocked me up, gave due weight to local issues, who's pledging to fix the crater-sized pothole near Tesco, who's best placed to pollard the trees on my road, the competing positions on the hot potato of the proposed new bus lane (I'm in the yes camp), then once fully clued up, the final step of deciding who to vote for. Which for me this time is going to be Labour.
Opportunity would be a fine thing. We have five candidates: Cons, Green, Lab, LibDem & Reform. At my house we've had three 'communications'; an excellent, formative one from the Greens, referring to local issues, a rather desperate one from the Conservatives and one from Reform which mentioned no local issues whatsoever and indeed didn't even mention the candidates name.
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
I often wonder if the same Centrists Dads would be getting it totally wrong that first couple of years when David Cameron became Conservative leader and he was pictured with the huskies.. Look how many of them totally underestimated his then wing man who over saw his leadership campaign up against the then nailed on favourite David Davis. The day Theresa May became Conservative Leader and PM she and her team didn't allow George Osborne the dignity of resigning from his post as Chancellor, no he was sacked and I said that day it was her first and probable her biggest mistake. I always remember OGH agreeing with that verdict.
She didn't have an elected wing man who was as over their own brief at No11 or any other Cabinet post but also all the other departments to the extent he saw the issues with her own two key Spads at the Home Office but more importantly Michael Gove's Spad Dominic Cummings.. And he was proved right.
Theresa May's advisers that Osborne locked heads with advised her to go back on her word about calling an early election and then oversaw that disastrous manifesto and campaign leaving her a much weakened PM with no majority during the endless Parliamentary Brexit battles at Westminster until she finally throw the towel in and stepped down.
And that has been a problem for Keir Starmer too, he has been too reliant on unelected Spads and had no loyal base of elected senior Cabinet Ministers to advise him or protect him. Instead he is swinging in the wind more rudderless as he has no leadership skills or natural support base within his party, and now so weak his Cabinet and backbenchers are exploiting that and getting in their own demands while getting him to carry the can and making him look weaker by the day. And yet he keeps throwing everyone else who gets in the poltical cross fire under a bus, at some point he is going to run out of people blame and he already has no elected allies to lean on.
Osborne had plenty of faults, but he was head and shoulders above pretty well all of his successors as Chancellor.
I will vote tactically for Labour today. I derive no pleasure from this vote whatsoever, but it is more important to me that the Greens don’t get a foothold in this ward. My vote at a GE would not be Labour right now.
Reluctant or with gusto, informed or flippant, head or heart - they all count the same.
Careful, you’ll make me rethink it! It’s honestly the hardest vote I have made in any election. I don’t like tactical voting as a rule, but there are bigger factors at play this time.
No, it's a good call imo. No need to worry about the GE today. It's ages away and things could look very different by then. I hope they do in fact!
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
Maybe he thinks he can gain more anti-semitic votes than he loses. The strategy seemed to work (to a point) for Corbyn
On the subject of anti-semitism, would any of these images be tolerated of any other Jewish politician?
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Perfectly ok as we have been assured on here that Polanski has a 'hooked nose'
He does though. Its tricky for cartoonists who will exaggerate features of the subject for comic effect. I'd argue Polanski's features of note are (1) his gap in his teeth and (2) a rather large nose.
So has my prediction that Brookes wouldn't have to apologise for his anti-semitic cartoon of Polanski been borne out?
Owen Jones covered this in a Guardian article, it's OK because Polanski isn't really Jewish because he's left wing and opposed to the policies and actions of the current Israeli govt. So people who aren't Jewish are free to accuse actual Jewish people of being anti-Semitic if they criticise the Israeli govt.
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
I have two pegs on my nose today as I vote PC. One peg to punish Starmer and one peg to punish Reform.
So many people in this election voting against rather than for. Once I can finally be arsed to leave home I will be voting Labour to keep out Green.
I will be taking the dog shortly and voting Independent, to keep them all out!
That most PB’ers are casting their votes for a party other than the one they favour is the strongest possible argument for a better voting system.
The underlying benefit of FPTP is that it rewards groups who get their coalitions sorted before the election and that's better for voters. If that's no longer happening, what's the point?
I'm still pinballing about the least bad way to make an anti-Reform futile gesture. I suspect all the possibilities have given up anyway.
So, big day. You should do it properly and I have. Read all the leaflets (carefully), researched the candidates, chatted to any who knocked me up, gave due weight to local issues, who's pledging to fix the crater-sized pothole near Tesco, who's best placed to pollard the trees on my road, the competing positions on the hot potato of the proposed new bus lane (I'm in the yes camp), then once fully clued up, the final step of deciding who to vote for. Which for me this time is going to be Labour.
Opportunity would be a fine thing. We have five candidates: Cons, Green, Lab, LibDem & Reform. At my house we've had three 'communications'; an excellent, formative one from the Greens, referring to local issues, a rather desperate one from the Conservatives and one from Reform which mentioned no local issues whatsoever and indeed didn't even mention the candidates name.
Canvassing; don't make me laugh.
Green for you then?
Yup; personal vote. We like the chap.
I should have mentioned that there were no tellers outside the polling place, either. Turnout, the poll clerk said, wasn't too bad. Apparently on chap was waiting for them when they opened up; wanted to know if he could vote at 6.45am
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
I often wonder if the same Centrists Dads would be getting it totally wrong that first couple of years when David Cameron became Conservative leader and he was pictured with the huskies.. Look how many of them totally underestimated his then wing man who over saw his leadership campaign up against the then nailed on favourite David Davis. The day Theresa May became Conservative Leader and PM she and her team didn't allow George Osborne the dignity of resigning from his post as Chancellor, no he was sacked and I said that day it was her first and probable her biggest mistake. I always remember OGH agreeing with that verdict.
She didn't have an elected wing man who was as over their own brief at No11 or any other Cabinet post but also all the other departments to the extent he saw the issues with her own two key Spads at the Home Office but more importantly Michael Gove's Spad Dominic Cummings.. And he was proved right.
Theresa May's advisers that Osborne locked heads with advised her to go back on her word about calling an early election and then oversaw that disastrous manifesto and campaign leaving her a much weakened PM with no majority during the endless Parliamentary Brexit battles at Westminster until she finally throw the towel in and stepped down.
And that has been a problem for Keir Starmer too, he has been too reliant on unelected Spads and had no loyal base of elected senior Cabinet Ministers to advise him or protect him. Instead he is swinging in the wind more rudderless as he has no leadership skills or natural support base within his party, and now so weak his Cabinet and backbenchers are exploiting that and getting in their own demands while getting him to carry the can and making him look weaker by the day. And yet he keeps throwing everyone else who gets in the poltical cross fire under a bus, at some point he is going to run out of people blame and he already has no elected allies to lean on.
Osborne had plenty of faults, but he was head and shoulders above pretty well all of his successors as Chancellor.
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
Maybe he thinks he can gain more anti-semitic votes than he loses. The strategy seemed to work (to a point) for Corbyn
On the subject of anti-semitism, would any of these images be tolerated of any other Jewish politician?
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Perfectly ok as we have been assured on here that Polanski has a 'hooked nose'
He does though. Its tricky for cartoonists who will exaggerate features of the subject for comic effect. I'd argue Polanski's features of note are (1) his gap in his teeth and (2) a rather large nose.
We have two prominent gap-toothed party leaders now.
"In the Caribbean, gap teeth are associated with sexual allure; in West Africa, they signify wealth. In historical fiction, gap teeth signified poverty, idiocy or deviousness, as with Geoffrey Chaucer's wife of bath character. A gap-toothed character was not one to be taken seriously, and they'd often be found lurking at the bottom of the social pecking order.
Gap teeth have served some people particularly well. Comedians have long played on a gap-toothed appearance to convey disingenuousness and lack of guile. This plays to the idea of flaws being funny, but in an age where gap teeth are easily fixable, uniformity has become increasingly desirable.
As Patricia Cumper discovers, retaining a gap toothed appearance now has a lot to do with allure. In France, it represents coquettishness, lustfulness and sexual naivety. Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin and Vanessa Paradis were all cast in the role of alluring child-women early in their careers; their uneven dentistry helped to convince.
Today, a dentist's point of view on diastema – the official term for gap teeth – would be that it's a flaw waiting to be corrected. What does it say about those who choose to retain this distinguishing characteristic in the face of bright white, even-toothed homogeny? In this playful, surprising and personal journey, Patricia unpicks the consequences and the cultural connotations of retaining the gap in her two front teeth."
It seems everyone on here is now voting Conservative and praising Kemi Badenoch to the skies.
To use the gardening analogy, being cosseted in the indoor garden with the herbaceous intelligentsia and Niallus Fergusonium might be fine but she'll have to cope with the more rigorous environment of the outdoor world before long.
Her tendency to the uncosted populist pledge is a concern as is my abiding doubt whatever she says on working or not working with Reform will go out the window if the Parliamentary arithmetic means Reform plus Conservatives equals a majority. Oddly enough, I'd be more likely to vote for her if she said she would support a non-Reform Government but we all know that won't happen.
Here in Newham, fortunately, voting Conservative is about as useful as voting Lib Dem, Reform or CPA. I will vote LD for the Mayor but as I have three Council seats and one LD candidate, I have a dilemma over my other two votes which I've not resolved.
I'm obviously not Kemi's target audience, but for what it's worth - I always find her manner pleasant, and am taken aback by the relatively extreme policies that she often advocates. If I was looking for right-wing policies, would I be put off by her mild manner?
She spends too much time doom scrolling Twitter, so thinks batshit reactionary stuff is mainstream.
And yet, she is now the most popular of the major party leaders. The PB Centrist Dads getting it totally wrong. Again
I often wonder if the same Centrists Dads would be getting it totally wrong that first couple of years when David Cameron became Conservative leader and he was pictured with the huskies.. Look how many of them totally underestimated his then wing man who over saw his leadership campaign up against the then nailed on favourite David Davis. The day Theresa May became Conservative Leader and PM she and her team didn't allow George Osborne the dignity of resigning from his post as Chancellor, no he was sacked and I said that day it was her first and probable her biggest mistake. I always remember OGH agreeing with that verdict.
She didn't have an elected wing man who was as over their own brief at No11 or any other Cabinet post but also all the other departments to the extent he saw the issues with her own two key Spads at the Home Office but more importantly Michael Gove's Spad Dominic Cummings.. And he was proved right.
Theresa May's advisers that Osborne locked heads with advised her to go back on her word about calling an early election and then oversaw that disastrous manifesto and campaign leaving her a much weakened PM with no majority during the endless Parliamentary Brexit battles at Westminster until she finally throw the towel in and stepped down.
And that has been a problem for Keir Starmer too, he has been too reliant on unelected Spads and had no loyal base of elected senior Cabinet Ministers to advise him or protect him. Instead he is swinging in the wind more rudderless as he has no leadership skills or natural support base within his party, and now so weak his Cabinet and backbenchers are exploiting that and getting in their own demands while getting him to carry the can and making him look weaker by the day. And yet he keeps throwing everyone else who gets in the poltical cross fire under a bus, at some point he is going to run out of people blame and he already has no elected allies to lean on.
Osborne had plenty of faults, but he was head and shoulders above pretty well all of his successors as Chancellor.
I know what you mean, but (as with Cameron) is that just a 'the house wasn't on fire when they were in charge' thing, ignoring the number of jerry cans of petrol they put in the dining room just before hosting a candlelit dinner?
An awful lot of our collective problems follow directly but slowly from decisions they took.
Good look to everybody voting against Reform today.
I have two pegs on my nose today as I vote PC. One peg to punish Starmer and one peg to punish Reform.
So many people in this election voting against rather than for. Once I can finally be arsed to leave home I will be voting Labour to keep out Green.
Real problem with FPTP in a multi-party system. People are getting elected but even half the people that actually voted for them don't really support them. A PR system where people can safely vote for the party they really want has to be an improvement. I don't see how FPTP survives with 5 or more parties all polling around the same amount - the next government will be dead in the water before it even starts.
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
Maybe he thinks he can gain more anti-semitic votes than he loses. The strategy seemed to work (to a point) for Corbyn
On the subject of anti-semitism, would any of these images be tolerated of any other Jewish politician?
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Perfectly ok as we have been assured on here that Polanski has a 'hooked nose'
He does though. Its tricky for cartoonists who will exaggerate features of the subject for comic effect. I'd argue Polanski's features of note are (1) his gap in his teeth and (2) a rather large nose.
Can’t be arsed having a long exchange about physiognomy but as I said before I don’t see a hooked nose. Nevertheless even I did, given the long, ignoble history of antisemitic cartooning I would avoid heavily exaggerating that feature of a Jewish politician.
To give you a sense of where things are heading in Hungary, two-thirds of Hungarians now want to see Viktor Orbán face trial for corruption, criminality, and malfeasance after his sixteen-year reign. https://x.com/kalmantibs/status/2052012884742336728
Comments
By 2028 Cleverly could be Tory leader anyway and Coe is about ten years younger than the US president
"Project Freedom" just promised that it would continue, without providing any certainty that shipping would resume anywhere near peacetime volumes.
But I still think Reform will get over 20 based on anecdotal chatter from the Highlsnds/NE/West Lothian. And the SNP won’t make 60.
Kemi is leading the new conservative party putting behind her the toxicity of Johnson and Truss
2 by-election per day, random ordering.
https://youtu.be/yuTMWgOduFM?si=-9UUE5TyRqI6GL6t
It would be like the Labour Party replacing Starmer with the cadaver of Mo Mowlam. How would you even do it? Where is she buried? How would you wheel her mouldering corpse into Cabinet meetings?
And what if she was cremated? Where would she sit in the Commons, the fucking ash tray by the Speaker’s chair?
It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous
Zack Polanski has claimed that neither Israel nor any other country has a right to exist
Why can’t he just be quiet? Bizarre strategy.
And Kemi didn't have a bad night at the local elections in 2025 so soon after being elected and when the public did not even know her or want to know her as the latest Conservative party leader, no that result was on Johnson, Truss & Co. Of course she was going to poll worse than previous leaders after such an historical Conservative defeat in 2024, so all the more commendable she as a party leader in the circumstances has managed to get the public noticing and listening to her to the point she has turned it around and increased her personal polling to the extent she has despite it not yet feeding into her party's polling figures yet in such a short time.
And I disagree with you on the claim that OGH would be telling you or anyone she was not in Cameron's class because she is only looking good because Starmer is so dire, I suspect that Cameron's personal polling got a lift from Gordon Brown proving to be a poor party Leader and PM too! I think that OGH would have been intrigued by her personal polling rise over the last six months and enough to point it out and highlight it as something to watch and ponder... Especially as Reform's polling peaked and Farage's personal popularity started to recede. He would have noticed and picked up on this.
I always remember that there were only three people on PB back in the day for a couple of years who thought that George Osborne was the most underated UK politician at the time, I was one of them and OGH was another, and he like me didn't rate Gordon Brown either. I don't know who your contact is in the Conservative Parliamentary party right now, but they are a dud and you need to find a new one because their predictions are proving totally unfounded and quite the opposite.
When even the over all party polling is not great but you have a party leader who is proving a poll rating hit and your elected members and candidates want to have their picture taken with you and print it all over their campaign literature its usually a good sign that they see you as a voter winner not a dud.... Ask Anas Sawar why he has blanked Keir Starmer and not let him near the Scottish Labour party's Holyrood campaign.
Green leader Zack Polanski went viral this week for all the wrong reasons, Kemi Badenoch went viral for all the right reasons and Farage, well he has been ducking and diving all the awkward donation questions and Keir Starmer is living in the Twilight zone along with John Swinney trying to avoid voter anger when they would prefer voter apathy.
I think 16 would be nearer the upper end of Green seats, theres one or two constituencies they could have stood in and performed very well, Kelvin would be a strong chance if Patrick Harvie had stood and it was old boundaries. They'll get a seat in South, but wont get 2, most other regions should deliver 2 Greens.
Think I said 58 for SNP in the predictions contest, but can see them down to 55 or slightly lower if they don't poll well in Aberdeenshire and Highlands. I think the Tories can hang on in the south, but their list will be decimated. Less sure about Labour, not a good sign for them from Jackie Baillie yesterday
He makes Corbyn look like Wittgenstein
Edit: though Leon puts it better and more colourfully.
I like the fact that she’s up for a debate and I think we need more politicians who are prepared to really argue for their points of view. But if she’s going to properly break through she needs to really focus on her philosophy and policy in the next 12 months and know which battles to fight.
Incidentally a bizarre response to blame the Green Party for right wing press cartoons.
Conservative Maureen Braun 643
Conservative Rita Pomfret 620
Liberal Democrats David Brierley 619
Liberal Democrats John Dickie 549
Labour John Saynor 432
Labour Anna Wernher 397
Green John Penney 219
Thanks for the header - I don't have much to say except for the typo where your computer inserted "banker" instead of "lawyer".
No votes here, so I continue to try and educate Ref UK Councillors.
It would be refreshing to have a politician say "I need to get to the bottom of what is going on before responding in an interview", but I do not think that would go down well in out attention deficited world.
He said "Fifty years from now .." in 1993. That is 33 years ago.
I did fill the car up what was briefly the "Reform filling station" this morning (alas no longer with a Farage discount, but still the cheapest in the area by 2p/l).
French professor accused of ‘gigantic hoax’ after inventing Nobel-style prize
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/french-professor-florent-montaclair-accused-award-prize
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c0l21992z75o
All you need is to ask people to surrender their phones whilst voting, and make it widely know that you are doing so. Anyone who is being coerced into a vote can cheerfully hand their phone over, vote, then tell whoever is attempting to coerces them that they had their phone taken off them before they got to the polling booth. You don't actually have to worry all that much about people smuggling phones into the polling booth, just make it so those who don't want to take pictures have a plausible reason why they can't.
Anyway, all this is pointless whilst the scandal of mass postal voting exists; in that there is no secret ballot, and for that reason alone I would restrict it to cases of genuine medical need.
I'm beginning to think you're a serial bandwaggoneer.
That most PB’ers are casting their votes for a party other than the one they favour is the strongest possible argument for a better voting system.
I’ve spent most of my life in Lib Dem/Tory marginals . I’ve now ended up in Eastbourne so that continues .
Hopefully the Reform Tory vote can split favourably here and the Lib Dem’s can gain East Sussex County Council .
She didn't have an elected wing man who was as over their own brief at No11 or any other Cabinet post but also all the other departments to the extent he saw the issues with her own two key Spads at the Home Office but more importantly Michael Gove's Spad Dominic Cummings.. And he was proved right.
Theresa May's advisers that Osborne locked heads with advised her to go back on her word about calling an early election and then oversaw that disastrous manifesto and campaign leaving her a much weakened PM with no majority during the endless Parliamentary Brexit battles at Westminster until she finally throw the towel in and stepped down.
And that has been a problem for Keir Starmer too, he has been too reliant on unelected Spads and had no loyal base of elected senior Cabinet Ministers to advise him or protect him. Instead he is swinging in the wind more rudderless as he has no leadership skills or natural support base within his party, and now so weak his Cabinet and backbenchers are exploiting that and getting in their own demands while getting him to carry the can and making him look weaker by the day. And yet he keeps throwing everyone else who gets in the poltical cross fire under a bus, at some point he is going to run out of people blame and he already has no elected allies to lean on.
SNP on 60 (no list seats)
We have five candidates: Cons, Green, Lab, LibDem & Reform. At my house we've had three 'communications'; an excellent, formative one from the Greens, referring to local issues, a rather desperate one from the Conservatives and one from Reform which mentioned no local issues whatsoever and indeed didn't even mention the candidates name.
Canvassing; don't make me laugh.
You have a bizarre attitude to the frailty of women. It's not only insulting it also paints a picture which has no bearing on reality. Indeed if you do know women who are dragged kicking and screaming to have their vote squeezed out of them I suggest you call by a social worker on your way to the station
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Life-affirming sci-fi.
Very little evidence of the local elections at all here. The only posters I have seen are for the Greens, haphazardly stuck to the inside of living room windows. We only received one leaflet and that was from the Tories.
Owen Jones covered this in a Guardian article, it's OK because Polanski isn't really Jewish because he's left wing and opposed to the policies and actions of the current Israeli govt.
So people who aren't Jewish are free to accuse actual Jewish people of being anti-Semitic if they criticise the Israeli govt.
I'm still pinballing about the least bad way to make an anti-Reform futile gesture. I suspect all the possibilities have given up anyway.
I should have mentioned that there were no tellers outside the polling place, either. Turnout, the poll clerk said, wasn't too bad. Apparently on chap was waiting for them when they opened up; wanted to know if he could vote at 6.45am
"In the Caribbean, gap teeth are associated with sexual allure; in West Africa, they signify wealth. In historical fiction, gap teeth signified poverty, idiocy or deviousness, as with Geoffrey Chaucer's wife of bath character. A gap-toothed character was not one to be taken seriously, and they'd often be found lurking at the bottom of the social pecking order.
Gap teeth have served some people particularly well. Comedians have long played on a gap-toothed appearance to convey disingenuousness and lack of guile. This plays to the idea of flaws being funny, but in an age where gap teeth are easily fixable, uniformity has become increasingly desirable.
As Patricia Cumper discovers, retaining a gap toothed appearance now has a lot to do with allure. In France, it represents coquettishness, lustfulness and sexual naivety. Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin and Vanessa Paradis were all cast in the role of alluring child-women early in their careers; their uneven dentistry helped to convince.
Today, a dentist's point of view on diastema – the official term for gap teeth – would be that it's a flaw waiting to be corrected. What does it say about those who choose to retain this distinguishing characteristic in the face of bright white, even-toothed homogeny? In this playful, surprising and personal journey, Patricia unpicks the consequences and the cultural connotations of retaining the gap in her two front teeth."
https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2015/39/mind-the-gap
An awful lot of our collective problems follow directly but slowly from decisions they took.
https://x.com/respectisvital/status/2051991062432940112?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
To give you a sense of where things are heading in Hungary, two-thirds of Hungarians now want to see Viktor Orbán face trial for corruption, criminality, and malfeasance after his sixteen-year reign.
https://x.com/kalmantibs/status/2052012884742336728