Reform have won an overall majority on Essex county council with 39 seats to 8 for the Tories, 3 for the LDs, 2 for the Independents and 1 for the Greens and RA
Orkney first Holyrood constituency declaration. LD hold but a massive 10.5% swing from SNP to LD since 2021
LDs 7221, SNP 1,661, Reform 844, Conservatives 358, Labour 199
Big swing to Lib Dems. Liam McArthur was the prime mover of the assisted dying debate, and is very well thought of. He is possibly the next Presiding Officer.
Orkney first Holyrood constituency declaration. LD hold but a massive 10.5% swing from SNP to LD since 2021
LDs 7221, SNP 1,661, Reform 844, Conservatives 358, Labour 199
That’s…. unexpected?!
LD hold not, the size of the swing from the SNP though unexpected. Not a good omen for Swinney and his hopes of a majority, if that anti SNP swing is replicated elsewhere in Scotland the SNP will lose seats
While we wait for more results here’s something cool (or I think it’s cool)
I bought a hand axe off eBay. Not just any old hand axe: a bifacially worked flint handaxe, recovered in the 1970s from a “Pleistocene channel deposit at Reculver” - on the north Kent coast. That is to say: it is of the early Acheulean tradition, and dates approximately 400,000 years before present
To give a sense of the era: at that time the British Isles were not islands but a peninsula of the European mainland. It was found by the English Channel but dropped by its creator long before there WAS a Channel
Even better, the maker was human but not human. Pre human. The dude that knapped my flint was almost certainly Homo heidelbergensis. Anatomically modern humans would not appear in Africa for a further 100,000 years, and would not reach Britain for another 350,000
The thing has a deeply strange, deeply uncanny beauty, I can feel where the pre human fingers held it, smashing elephant bones to get at the marrow, scraping the red flesh of an auroch or a macaque or a hippo. The patina is subtly gorgeous and the yellowy flint positively throbs with noom
Cost? £65
Are you sure that modern humans have in fact reached all parts of the United Kingdom?
What sign of the Gaza Independents? All independents currently 20 (-16). A damb squib or the likely areas are yet to be counted?
I don't know if we've had many. I noted early doors that Labour's sole 2022 hold in Tameside, St. Peter's (effectively Ashton St. Peter's but not named so as I think it creeps over the town boundary into the Guide Bridge bit of Audenshaw) was actually won by a Gaza Independent in 2024, so Labour managed about a 5% swing against the Independent in those two years.
Looked at Oldham at wards where the Gaza Independents won in 2024. A small swing, sub 5% typically, from Gaza back to Labour is pretty consistently seen, we'll get more data points from Blackburn and West Yorkshire today, but I'd say similar is likely.
EDIT again: rise of Reform covers in some places, but it not just a proportional contraction of vote share, Labour numbers do hold up slightly better.
Orkney first Holyrood constituency declaration. LD hold but a massive 10.5% swing from SNP to LD since 2021
LDs 7221, SNP 1,661, Reform 844, Conservatives 358, Labour 199
That’s…. unexpected?!
LD hold not, the size of the swing from the SNP though unexpected. Not a good omen for Swinney and his hopes of a majority, if that anti SNP swing is replicated elsewhere in Scotland the SNP will lose seats
It's a mixed bag though. If the SNP nab Eastwood, and hold off Labour in East Lothian, they'll be down but maybe only by 6 or 7 seats, maybe even fewer
Talk of a Cabinet revolt telling Keir Starmer to quit is dead.
That's the vibe of my mammoth ring round this morning
My god they are pathetic. It just takes one person with cullions. They utterly deserve the terrible defeat that is coming as they persist with Skyr. Even as he leads the country to utter destruction and lawless despair
Mind you I am weirdly taken by the phrase “mammoth ring round” so it’s swings and roundabouts
All of England is going Reform, apart from a small leafy beauteous pocket of north London by Primrose Hill
Which is kind of ironic
No because you like living there and although you seem to be a big fan of Reform you don’t like living amongst the ill fitting leggings brigade and chavs maurading down the streets with their double child buggies !
If HM opposition cannot gain seats when a government is this unpopular what chance do they have? They’ve been largely eclipsed.
At least an unpopular government has some cards to play. Nor sure what cards HM opposition have when other opposition parties are more popular .
Indeed - play the long game only, and that doesn't seem to work anymore. Absent a collapse in polling will people in 2029 be spooked back home rather than risk 'wasting' a vote for Reform?
If HM opposition cannot gain seats when a government is this unpopular what chance do they have? They’ve been largely eclipsed.
At least an unpopular government has some cards to play. Nor sure what cards HM opposition have when other opposition parties are more popular .
I think your first statement ignores the fact that said opposition was in power for 14 years and has just been turfed out.
Wasn’t an issue for Labour in 2011 and the Tories in 1998.
2011 is a bad example, as it was the days of three party politics and two of them were in coalition; Labour benefitted from being the only party not in government that had any airtime.
This time, Reform and the Greens were coming off the back of a decent GE, so were obviously the NOTAs. The surprise for me is how the Lib Dem’s haven’t prospered, given an unpopular Labour govt and a wounded Tory party who’ve just been thrown out
So why did the Tories make net gains in 1998?
Normally HM opposition would expect to make significant gains. A necessary basecamp before the subsequent GE. It’s unusual for them to go backwards.
Indeed, the abuse I get for pointing that out is weird.
On their terrible expectations they've met those expectations. It really could be worse.
Orkney first Holyrood constituency declaration. LD hold but a massive 10.5% swing from SNP to LD since 2021
LDs 7221, SNP 1,661, Reform 844, Conservatives 358, Labour 199
Fairly thumping win. Lib Dems are doing well in all their Scottish seats outside of Shetland
The Shetland Lib Dem candidate is an unpopular council leader.
From what I've seen the SNP candidate seems fairly popular. If its a narrow SNP win, that's on the Lib Dems for a poor selection. Personality is everything on the islands
Not a rabbit hole I'm pursuing, but as per usual it's probably the speed difference - between moving at 8-12mph and 25-40mph.
Mopeds are legally limited to 28mph, and have so little power even a small incline will halve that. A cyclist going down a hill will easily out-run a moped.
It would be nice if one country decided to require approved helmets for cyclists, it would provide useful data.
All of England is going Reform, apart from a small leafy beauteous pocket of north London by Primrose Hill
Which is kind of ironic
Not all Harlow, Fareham, Broxbourne stayed blue, the Tories won most seats in Hampshire and Labour have held a few areas like Wigan and Salford and Reading and the LDs have won Stockport and Eastleigh.
Reform not breaking through for even most seats anywhere in London so far though except Havering
All of England is going Reform, apart from a small leafy beauteous pocket of north London by Primrose Hill
Which is kind of ironic
Not all Harlow, Fareham, Broxbourne stayed blue, the Tories won most seats in Hampshire and Labour have held a few areas like Wigan and Salford and Reading and the LDs have won Stockport and Eastleigh.
Reform not breaking through for even most seats anywhere in London so far though except Havering
Lab got clobbered in Wigan and Salford but they elect by thirds
Jacob Rees Mogg on BBC says 'you haven't got in Essex dripping wet Tory MPs, the national party flirting with Lib Demmery cost them there' but he says Kemi is sound
Talk of a Cabinet revolt telling Keir Starmer to quit is dead.
That's the vibe of my mammoth ring round this morning
He knows he can't stay in place for the GE. He doesn't want to go now. His rivals aren't ready to take over now.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the betting market has it very wrong and he will leave in 2027.
PM 2024-2027 looks much better than 2024-2026
Next year they'll be a little voice in the back of his head saying that PM 2024-2028 looks even better. And then, somehow, he'll end up fighting the next election...
Things not going well for Labour in Manchester. In the seats being contested, they are currently third with 2, after Ref and Grn (3 each). I didn't expect Reform to be winning seats in Manchester. They've also lost Burnage (which is Bev Craig's seat - the council leader and mooted successor to Andy Burnham - though she is not up for election this time) to the Greens.
EDIT - two more Green gains from Labour in Manchester - Lab have now lost seven of the nine declared seats they were defending.
In my view Starmer is viscerally hated because of what happened before him and how little has actually changed from what came before.
By the time the Tories left office the average voter was pretty disgusted with them. Starmer was the alternative, and promised change. Many people voted for him on that basis, rather than with any enthusiasm, most probably with echoes of Blair's bold project in their minds. Few will have realised that the 2020s economy is very, very different from the late 90s one.
Starmer has been so limp, unappealing and slopey-shouldered in office that the hopes people placed in him for change and renewal leave a bitter, bitter taste in the mouth.
Changing leaders will, in my view, make this bitter taste worse rather than better, as it will make Labour seem even more Tory-lite in their incompetence.
The logical end point is that Reform win the next election. At which point they'll be the target of the same ire.
Things not going well for Labour in Manchester. In the seats being contested, they are currently third with 2, after Ref and Grn (3 each). I didn't expect Reform to be winning seats in Manchester. They've also lost Burnage (which is Bev Craig's seat - the council leader and mooted successor to Andy Burnham - though she is not up for election this time) to the Greens.
EDIT - two more Green gains from Labour in Manchester - Lab have now lost seven of the nine declared seats they were defending.
An unexpected update from the Worthing and Adur count… people have been advised to stay in the building due to a swarm of thousands of bees near the entrance
Anecdote alert - irrelevant to the local elections.
A friend is (improbably) a prince in the UAE (they have hundreds of princes in their seven royal families so it's less of a big deal than it would be here).
He has just decided to move with his numerous children in their "PJ" [private jet] to London to avoid the war and concentrate on managing their wealth in Europe and the States.
So it's not just expats and tourists who are affected by Trump's terrible decisions ...
Interesting anecdote.
Dare I say that for everyone moving from UAE to UK to ‘manage’ their wealth, there’s a few more moving in the opposite direction with the intention of creating wealth.
London is a pretty good place to be if you have a lot of international wealth and little income, to be fair.
London is a pretty good place to be, full stop. The sun is shining, there is an abundance of trees and greenery all around, everyone is busy about their business, from the white van man up early to the woke dad with his two little uns on the back of his bike on the way to the excellent local primary school.
That's poor weight distribution, smallest on the front, larger one on the back. Once the smaller one is >15kgs you're looking at a tandem or cargo bike.
Cargo bikes for kids are generally a sign of well off, middle or upper class people. They tend to be expensive and work best when you live close to good schools.
Driving a "Chelsea Tractor" on the school run s seen as a bit chavy
Aren’t the cargo bikes like £5k? My car cost me less than that.
The absolute cheapest new Range Rover is about £42k.
My second hand Volkswagen Polo was £12k. £5k is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
My brand new Suzuki Swift set me back less than £13k just a couple of years ago. You can get second hand vehicles for considerably less than that.
£5k for most families is a hell of a lot of money.
Especially if you already have/need a vehicle then £5k for an additional form of transport is a luxury many can't afford.
A lot of families in London wont have a car in addition to a “cargo bike”. I don’t dispute that £5k is a hell of a lot of money but let’s not pretend it’s the height of luxury. Farage’s pals hand him £5m like it’s nothing.
By the way, the list price for a 2024 Suzuki Swift is over £19k.
PB is so out of touch
"List price"
Anyone who pays list price has been seen coming a mile off or has more money then sense.
When I bought my car the list price was over £17k. I paid under 13k. New vehicle.
I shopped around for ages looking for the cheapest vehicle, found one dealer elsewhere in the country offering the vehicle for that price. I called my local dealer and booked an appointment, leaving my contact details. Came in for the appointment, I mentioned the price I had seen online and they said they were unable to match it. I thanked them for their time and walked out and walked away.
I got half-way down the road before my phone rang and they said they'd had another look and could make it work. New vehicle for over £4k under list price.
An unexpected update from the Worthing and Adur count… people have been advised to stay in the building due to a swarm of thousands of bees near the entrance
Zoe Garbutt as Mayor of Hackney will be an interesting one.
Her local policies come across as "Green sensible", but her internationist ones, of internationalism linked ones, come across as a little more "Green bonkers", imo. If the Greens scrape control of the Borough itself, there will be interesting times in Hackney. Vincent Stops will not be impressed.
It seems that K&C will remain a segment of 1970s London embedded in the 2020s. For anyone using mobility infrastructure crossing a border into K&C is like entering a black hole in the midst of London.
Anecdote alert - irrelevant to the local elections.
A friend is (improbably) a prince in the UAE (they have hundreds of princes in their seven royal families so it's less of a big deal than it would be here).
He has just decided to move with his numerous children in their "PJ" [private jet] to London to avoid the war and concentrate on managing their wealth in Europe and the States.
So it's not just expats and tourists who are affected by Trump's terrible decisions ...
Interesting anecdote.
Dare I say that for everyone moving from UAE to UK to ‘manage’ their wealth, there’s a few more moving in the opposite direction with the intention of creating wealth.
London is a pretty good place to be if you have a lot of international wealth and little income, to be fair.
London is a pretty good place to be, full stop. The sun is shining, there is an abundance of trees and greenery all around, everyone is busy about their business, from the white van man up early to the woke dad with his two little uns on the back of his bike on the way to the excellent local primary school.
That's poor weight distribution, smallest on the front, larger one on the back. Once the smaller one is >15kgs you're looking at a tandem or cargo bike.
Cargo bikes for kids are generally a sign of well off, middle or upper class people. They tend to be expensive and work best when you live close to good schools.
Driving a "Chelsea Tractor" on the school run s seen as a bit chavy
Aren’t the cargo bikes like £5k? My car cost me less than that.
The absolute cheapest new Range Rover is about £42k.
My second hand Volkswagen Polo was £12k. £5k is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
My brand new Suzuki Swift set me back less than £13k just a couple of years ago. You can get second hand vehicles for considerably less than that.
£5k for most families is a hell of a lot of money.
Especially if you already have/need a vehicle then £5k for an additional form of transport is a luxury many can't afford.
A lot of families in London wont have a car in addition to a “cargo bike”. I don’t dispute that £5k is a hell of a lot of money but let’s not pretend it’s the height of luxury. Farage’s pals hand him £5m like it’s nothing.
By the way, the list price for a 2024 Suzuki Swift is over £19k.
PB is so out of touch
"List price"
Anyone who pays list price has been seen coming a mile off or has more money then sense.
When I bought my car the list price was over £17k. I paid under 13k. New vehicle.
I shopped around for ages looking for the cheapest vehicle, found one dealer elsewhere in the country offering the vehicle for that price. I called my local dealer and booked an appointment, leaving my contact details. Came in for the appointment, I mentioned the price I had seen online and they said they were unable to match it. I thanked them for their time and walked out and walked away.
I got half-way down the road before my phone rang and they said they'd had another look and could make it work. New vehicle for over £4k under list price.
My experience was the same as Bart, albeit at a slightly higher price level.
However, to return to London, car ownership in London has been in absolute decline since about 2015-6. In toto it is just under 3% lower, despite a population increasing by 5%. There are more stats here:
Compared to predictions, I make all the swings between parties about 10% less than expected, with LDs doing as expected.
Gainers are as forecast: Ref UK a LOT, Lab badly down, Con quite badly down, Green well up, LD up.
Personal expectation: the Ref UK defenestration rate will double, and the Ref UK self-destruct horizon will come closer as more people are exposed to having their community run by knee-jerk. I'm not clear what will happen to the saner / more competent end of Reform Councils.
Here in Ashfield, we are up for re-election in 2027, but the Ashfield Independents are probably a bigger feature for then, with their leader up before the Crown Court.
Not a rabbit hole I'm pursuing, but as per usual it's probably the speed difference - between moving at 8-12mph and 25-40mph.
Mopeds are legally limited to 28mph, and have so little power even a small incline will halve that. A cyclist going down a hill will easily out-run a moped.
It would be nice if one country decided to require approved helmets for cyclists, it would provide useful data.
On the data, we already have more than 25 years of data from Australia and New Zealand which has such a law since 1990, which is not conclusive, except that police use it for easy hits and the number of people cycling went down significantly. It is inconclusive on safety, and the law was was more the result of an emotion and media driven campaign in the 1980s.
On mopeds it's a little technical. There is also a category known as a High Power Mopeds with larger engines and higher speeds. Plus there are vehicles such as Sur-Rons, which are mopeds (or sometimes technically) motorcycles and often called "bikes" and used by delivery riders, but since the e-assist works at 25kph+ they already require moped safety gear. They normally do 40-50mph.
Plus we would normally regulate for the 98% not the 2%, and enforce on the 2% if necessary, especially when there is little evidence.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx218nk9w0kt
Talk of a Cabinet revolt telling Keir Starmer to quit is dead.
That's the vibe of my mammoth ring round this morning
Which is kind of ironic
EDIT again: rise of Reform covers in some places, but it not just a proportional contraction of vote share, Labour numbers do hold up slightly better.
Very unlikely for the SNP to get a majority now
NEW THREAD
Mind you I am weirdly taken by the phrase “mammoth ring round” so it’s swings and roundabouts
You’re a metropolitan elite Reform snob !
Dear @HackneyAbbott
In spite of your wishful thinking the results are NOT very bad for Labour.
https://x.com/georgefoulkes/status/2052701120254886202?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Passport to Primrose Hill, with Polly Toynbee doing the entry interrogations, and the customs inspections on exiting loads of smashed avocado.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the betting market has it very wrong and he will leave in 2027.
But that's not really much comfort.
The Tories at least stand everywhere, even NI sometimes.
It would be nice if one country decided to require approved helmets for cyclists, it would provide useful data.
Reform not breaking through for even most seats anywhere in London so far though except Havering
Tomorrow Gaza.
They've also lost Burnage (which is Bev Craig's seat - the council leader and mooted successor to Andy Burnham - though she is not up for election this time) to the Greens.
EDIT - two more Green gains from Labour in Manchester - Lab have now lost seven of the nine declared seats they were defending.
By the time the Tories left office the average voter was pretty disgusted with them. Starmer was the alternative, and promised change. Many people voted for him on that basis, rather than with any enthusiasm, most probably with echoes of Blair's bold project in their minds. Few will have realised that the 2020s economy is very, very different from the late 90s one.
Starmer has been so limp, unappealing and slopey-shouldered in office that the hopes people placed in him for change and renewal leave a bitter, bitter taste in the mouth.
Changing leaders will, in my view, make this bitter taste worse rather than better, as it will make Labour seem even more Tory-lite in their incompetence.
The logical end point is that Reform win the next election. At which point they'll be the target of the same ire.
An unexpected update from the Worthing and Adur count… people have been advised to stay in the building due to a swarm of thousands of bees near the entrance
Anyone who pays list price has been seen coming a mile off or has more money then sense.
When I bought my car the list price was over £17k. I paid under 13k. New vehicle.
I shopped around for ages looking for the cheapest vehicle, found one dealer elsewhere in the country offering the vehicle for that price. I called my local dealer and booked an appointment, leaving my contact details. Came in for the appointment, I mentioned the price I had seen online and they said they were unable to match it. I thanked them for their time and walked out and walked away.
I got half-way down the road before my phone rang and they said they'd had another look and could make it work. New vehicle for over £4k under list price.
Her local policies come across as "Green sensible", but her internationist ones, of internationalism linked ones, come across as a little more "Green bonkers", imo. If the Greens scrape control of the Borough itself, there will be interesting times in Hackney. Vincent Stops will not be impressed.
It seems that K&C will remain a segment of 1970s London embedded in the 2020s. For anyone using mobility infrastructure crossing a border into K&C is like entering a black hole in the midst of London.
However, to return to London, car ownership in London has been in absolute decline since about 2015-6. In toto it is just under 3% lower, despite a population increasing by 5%. There are more stats here:
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-2024-car-ownership-trends-acc.pdf
Compared to predictions, I make all the swings between parties about 10% less than expected, with LDs doing as expected.
Gainers are as forecast: Ref UK a LOT, Lab badly down, Con quite badly down, Green well up, LD up.
Personal expectation: the Ref UK defenestration rate will double, and the Ref UK self-destruct horizon will come closer as more people are exposed to having their community run by knee-jerk. I'm not clear what will happen to the saner / more competent end of Reform Councils.
Here in Ashfield, we are up for re-election in 2027, but the Ashfield Independents are probably a bigger feature for then, with their leader up before the Crown Court.
On mopeds it's a little technical. There is also a category known as a High Power Mopeds with larger engines and higher speeds. Plus there are vehicles such as Sur-Rons, which are mopeds (or sometimes technically) motorcycles and often called "bikes" and used by delivery riders, but since the e-assist works at 25kph+ they already require moped safety gear. They normally do 40-50mph.
Plus we would normally regulate for the 98% not the 2%, and enforce on the 2% if necessary, especially when there is little evidence.