Starmer is clearly past the point of no return but the more we hear about Farage and Polanski, particularly Farage, the more Starmer seems the best of a bad bunch. Anyone thinking Badenoch is the solution to any problem is suffering from cope
I Thought Starmer was excellent. The journalists in the room were embarrassingly ignorant but Starmer was the best he's been for several years. I voted against him at the election but if I'd heard this version of him he would have got my vote. I liked his manner and manners and he managed to remind us all that his competitors are Badenoch and Farage. The very thought makes me feel queasy
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
I both agree that we shouldn’t underestimate how bad the Tories’ election results were, but also note that Badenoch isn’t the one who got them there. Is she doing well when we look at the party’s historical record in elections? No. Is she doing well given the mess she inherited? Arguably, yes.
I also agree that there’s been too much swapping leaders as an attempted panacea. Changing leader all the time is like changing the manager of your football club all the time. They’re not necessarily the problem. Is Kemi the best person for the job? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I don’t think there’s a rush to replace her.
Whilst the voters have decided that Starmer is crap - in my view largely unfairly - and he has to go, I cannot see any of the possible candidates doing much better.The Labour Party has a real problem. But then so does the Conservative Party - interesting times!
If I could assemble a cabinet from MPs of any party, plus the cabinet equivalents of Reform and Green, I still wouldn't know where to start. I suspect I could assemble a far better one from pb.com.......
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
She was given a hospital pass.
Although, standing shouting for the ball "To me"" Give it to ME!!!" does rather negate the bility to use that argument.
Whilst the voters have decided that Starmer is crap - in my view largely unfairly - and he has to go, I cannot see any of the possible candidates doing much better.The Labour Party has a real problem. But then so does the Conservative Party - interesting times!
The problem Starmer has is that Labour needed to hit the ground running in July 2024 and they arrived utterly unprepared looking like a rabbit caught in the headlamp of a fast approaching car...
Sunak’s early election was part of a long-term plan to kill off Labour.
That gives Rishi far too much credit, the election was called because the tories saw what was coming and knew that continuing any longer would cost them even more seats than they won/
I think Rishi had had enough.
Yep. There comes a point in any activity that clearly isn't going to work, that it clearly isn't going to work. At that point you have options. The best is probably to acknowledge it and rips off the plaster. Short term pain, but better in the longer term. And I'd argue that Sunak does look better. Better than Starmer, Truss, May, more honest and ethical than Johnson.
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot · 1m Labour MP: "Catherine West is no longer trying to appoint herself as PM, she's trying to appoint herself as Graham Brady."
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot · 1m Labour MP: "Catherine West is no longer trying to appoint herself as PM, she's trying to appoint herself as Graham Brady."
Harriet Harperson looks like she has dropped a bollock.
Indeed she does.
I was struck by how old she and Brown both looked. Sunken cheeks, mottled crepe-paper skin, discoloured teeth, wispy hair. Age can be cruel.
They're 75. They get to look 75.
Aging is a terrible disease and always fatal. It's a wonder that most people accept it with grace.
Sir Dave looks incredible for 100.
I'm often struck by this - some really old people somehow look 20 years younger. Almost as if something in their DNA is working for giving them a long life.
"Data gathered by the global business insurer QBE via freedom of information requests reveals that fire brigades were called to 1,760 fires linked to lithium-ion batteries in 2025, equating to 4.8 fires a day, an increase of 147% over the past three years.
Electric vehicle fires rose by 133% over the same period, while the number of electric vehicles on UK roads tripled during that time.
QBE researchers found that ebike fires made up nearly a third of all lithium-ion battery fires nationally and noted that retrofitted and converted ebikes appeared to be disproportionately involved compared with certified models.
There were 520 callouts to fires involving ebikes in 2025, compared with 149 in 2022. London fire brigade (LFB) tackled 44% of these, with 230 ebike fires occurring in the capital last year and five related fatalities in the past three years."
It’s the Chinese kits, cheaply ordered online and often mislabeled, that are the problem. Customs need to be better at finding them, and trading standards need to be more proactive in policing bike shops reselling and fitting them. No, your electric Brompton isn’t going to ‘go on fire’.
I do wonder how well the Chinese cars are crash-tested, and if what arrives on the boat is then representative of what was certified. As with bikes, a Western-brand car is unlikely to catch fire in regular use, as opposed to after a major accident.
Trading standards saw their budgets halved under austerity. They just don’t have the capacity to do very much now,
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot · 1m Labour MP: "Catherine West is no longer trying to appoint herself as PM, she's trying to appoint herself as Graham Brady."
That’s very good. Labour are reinventing the Tory leadership rules from first principles.
"Data gathered by the global business insurer QBE via freedom of information requests reveals that fire brigades were called to 1,760 fires linked to lithium-ion batteries in 2025, equating to 4.8 fires a day, an increase of 147% over the past three years.
Electric vehicle fires rose by 133% over the same period, while the number of electric vehicles on UK roads tripled during that time.
QBE researchers found that ebike fires made up nearly a third of all lithium-ion battery fires nationally and noted that retrofitted and converted ebikes appeared to be disproportionately involved compared with certified models.
There were 520 callouts to fires involving ebikes in 2025, compared with 149 in 2022. London fire brigade (LFB) tackled 44% of these, with 230 ebike fires occurring in the capital last year and five related fatalities in the past three years."
It’s the Chinese kits, cheaply ordered online and often mislabeled, that are the problem. Customs need to be better at finding them, and trading standards need to be more proactive in policing bike shops reselling and fitting them. No, your electric Brompton isn’t going to ‘go on fire’.
I do wonder how well the Chinese cars are crash-tested, and if what arrives on the boat is then representative of what was certified. As with bikes, a Western-brand car is unlikely to catch fire in regular use, as opposed to after a major accident.
Trading standards saw their budgets halved under austerity. They just don’t have the capacity to do very much now,
They are also expected to take on organised crime gangs on our high streets rather than police. Bonkers.
So who is this Australian woman who no-one had heard of a week ago?
More importantly, who is behind her, because a backbencher isn’t about to launch a serious leadership challenge herself?
It's not 'a serious leadership challenge' though is it? She could just be someone who feels Starmer needs to go and feels she can preciptate his departure.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
...What have they actually achieved, beyond raising taxes on employment, VAT on school fees which costs money, public sector pay rises, welfare caps removed, and 40-week abortions?
...abolition of the concept of transsexuality, removal of the right to jury trial, removal of the right to protest, removal of access to internet pornography, restricted access to the internet, actual destruction of the Royal Navy, and - I shit you not - voluntary repatriation.
Oh, and they nearly passed a bill to kill the old and sick.
There is no abolition of the concept of trans. That is a gross misrepresentation of the SC judgement
Post-FWS, there are now no circumstances in which a person born male is now legally the opposite sex. Opposite pronouns may be used but they (no longer?) attach to the rights or status of the opposite sex and are now purely ceremonial. The words "gender" and "sex" now mean different things.
I disagree with this wholeheartedly and also disagree with the gender critical interpretation that FWS was a clarification instead of a retcon. But regardless of what the situation was then, the question of what the situation is now has been resolved: the concept of a "sex change" now has no legal meaning in the United Kingdom.
Though of course parliament can change the law on that as soon as they like. SFAICS all the SC was doing was trying to tell parliament what it had meant by a single word in a single act once upon a time, which is the SC's job. It is government/parliament's job to rectify what it doesn't care for about its previous acts. What won't do is the only body able to change the law objecting to a court's interpretation of pre-existing law but remaining inactive.
It's a bit like the government saying that leaving the EU was a terrible policy mistake and we are going to carry on with the policy. Which surely couldn't happen could it?.....
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
Presumably the 20% I saw over the weekend was from another way of estimating. In some ways it doesn't matter 20% is still utterly terrible. However local elections are not the same as a GE. And potentially a GE were there are some stark choices to be made.
In 2024 people were utterly sick of the sight of the Tories and voted thusly. Labour won a huge majority on a pretty poor national vote share. That can be done again.
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
The hole in that plan is that somebody would need to be appointed PM in the interim.
Starmer is clearly past the point of no return but the more we hear about Farage and Polanski, particularly Farage, the more Starmer seems the best of a bad bunch. Anyone thinking Badenoch is the solution to any problem is suffering from cope
I Thought Starmer was excellent. The journalists in the room were embarrassingly ignorant but Starmer was the best he's been for several years. I voted against him at the election but if I'd heard this version of him he would have got my vote. I liked his manner and manners and he managed to remind us all that his competitors are Badenoch and Farage. The very thought makes me feel queasy
Starmer is clearly past the point of no return but the more we hear about Farage and Polanski, particularly Farage, the more Starmer seems the best of a bad bunch. Anyone thinking Badenoch is the solution to any problem is suffering from cope
I Thought Starmer was excellent. The journalists in the room were embarrassingly ignorant but Starmer was the best he's been for several years. I voted against him at the election but if I'd heard this version of him he would have got my vote. I liked his manner and manners and he managed to remind us all that his competitors are Badenoch and Farage. The very thought makes me feel queasy
You make me look stable in my opinions. You veer between STARMER IS TERRIBLE and STARMER IS GREAT AND MUST STAY every fifteen minutes
"Data gathered by the global business insurer QBE via freedom of information requests reveals that fire brigades were called to 1,760 fires linked to lithium-ion batteries in 2025, equating to 4.8 fires a day, an increase of 147% over the past three years.
Electric vehicle fires rose by 133% over the same period, while the number of electric vehicles on UK roads tripled during that time.
QBE researchers found that ebike fires made up nearly a third of all lithium-ion battery fires nationally and noted that retrofitted and converted ebikes appeared to be disproportionately involved compared with certified models.
There were 520 callouts to fires involving ebikes in 2025, compared with 149 in 2022. London fire brigade (LFB) tackled 44% of these, with 230 ebike fires occurring in the capital last year and five related fatalities in the past three years."
It’s the Chinese kits, cheaply ordered online and often mislabeled, that are the problem. Customs need to be better at finding them, and trading standards need to be more proactive in policing bike shops reselling and fitting them. No, your electric Brompton isn’t going to ‘go on fire’.
I do wonder how well the Chinese cars are crash-tested, and if what arrives on the boat is then representative of what was certified. As with bikes, a Western-brand car is unlikely to catch fire in regular use, as opposed to after a major accident.
You're replying to statistics showing the number of fires per EV dropped by 22% during the time when the proportion of EVs made in China went from hardly any to loads. It's not obvious that this shows a problem with Chinese cars.
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
Electoral Calculus currently has Holborn and St Pancras as a Green gain. Which would be a bit of a giggle.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
I both agree that we shouldn’t underestimate how bad the Tories’ election results were, but also note that Badenoch isn’t the one who got them there. Is she doing well when we look at the party’s historical record in elections? No. Is she doing well given the mess she inherited? Arguably, yes.
I also agree that there’s been too much swapping leaders as an attempted panacea. Changing leader all the time is like changing the manager of your football club all the time. They’re not necessarily the problem. Is Kemi the best person for the job? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I don’t think there’s a rush to replace her.
Party Leaders need to score goals and be the goal keeper in addition to their football manager like roles!
Talk of Catherine West having backed down. Presumably she didn't already have the names needed. So this is just formally going out to gather them as the email states...?
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
The hole in that plan is that somebody would need to be appointed PM in the interim.
Nope. The PM doesn’t need to be an MP. Starmer could hang around.
Or maybe the King should just skip ahead and appoint Burnham as PM now, recognising the clear will of the people? Or maybe the King should just abdicate and let the King of the North take over? (All of these are better plans than anything Burnham’s team have come up with.)
Just seen Stringer is saying Starmer should stand down immediately. That wouldn’t help Burnham .
Starmer could stand down as an MP, Burnham fights the by-election in Holborn & St Pancras and is elected, then takes over the premiership.
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
I do wonder how well the Chinese cars are crash-tested, and if what arrives on the boat is then representative of what was certified. As with bikes, a Western-brand car is unlikely to catch fire in regular use, as opposed to after a major accident.
EuroNCAP buy cars at random in dealers and also can request random cars as they come off the line at the factory.
Never say never after dieselgate (which was only software) but I highly doubt the rewards of cheating EuroNCAP would be balanced by the immense reputational risk of being caught.
There are, of course, lots of cars that can't be imported into the EU because they're too dangerous. The UK could withdraw from EuroNCAP (it is part of the EU after all) and we could get Great Wall Steeds as a Brexit benefit.
Harriet Harperson looks like she has dropped a bollock.
Indeed she does.
I was struck by how old she and Brown both looked. Sunken cheeks, mottled crepe-paper skin, discoloured teeth, wispy hair. Age can be cruel.
They're 75. They get to look 75.
Yes, but teeth can be fixed (veneers) and skin can be temporarily fixed (laser resurfacing, lots of moisturiser & suncream). Hair is a problem, but a short crop does wonders. Farage is an example of how not to do it, and for a man his age (62) he looks awful.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
Presumably the 20% I saw over the weekend was from another way of estimating. In some ways it doesn't matter 20% is still utterly terrible. However local elections are not the same as a GE. And potentially a GE were there are some stark choices to be made.
In 2024 people were utterly sick of the sight of the Tories and voted thusly. Labour won a huge majority on a pretty poor national vote share. That can be done again.
The Sky method, which seems to flatter the Tories and Reform, scales up somewhat crudely from last Thursday’s votes by modelling and adding in a similar swing for the council areas without elections. The BBC model is more sophisticated and allows for the effects of things like parties not fighting every ward, or not putting up a full slate in a multi-member ward, and draws on historical modelling to try and estimate how the country would have voted if everyone had participated on the same basis, as happens in a GE.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
Presumably the 20% I saw over the weekend was from another way of estimating. In some ways it doesn't matter 20% is still utterly terrible. However local elections are not the same as a GE. And potentially a GE were there are some stark choices to be made.
In 2024 people were utterly sick of the sight of the Tories and voted thusly. Labour won a huge majority on a pretty poor national vote share. That can be done again.
The Sky method, which seems to flatter the Tories and Reform, scales up somewhat crudely from last Thursday’s votes by modelling and adding in a similar swing for the council areas without elections. The BBC model is more sophisticated and allows for the effects of things like parties not fighting every ward, or not putting up a full slate in a multi-member ward, and draws on historical modelling to try and estimate how the country would have voted if everyone had participated on the same basis, as happens in a GE.
Regardless, both the previously reported BBC and Sky national equivalent vote estimations were also flawed if for no other reason that they were announced early, before quite a lot of the votes were counted. I remember on Friday reading, on PB I think, that the second of them had been announced, I can't remember which one came first.
Does anyone know if in order to reflect the final vote tally the academics behind either the BBC or Sky have reviewed and updated their initial estimates of NEV, or intend to do so?
...I am well used to Kemi being underestimated. After last week she is going to surprise on the upside, and at least she can look on with a smile as labour tears itself apart
The Conservative LE results were: third in England, fourth in Wales, fifth in Scotland, NEV 20%, nowcast 96 seats in UK. She's going to have to surprise on the upside because without bombing an old people's home she can't surprise on the downside any more.
The Tory NEV figure is 17% as produced by Professor Sir John Curtice (PBUH).
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
Presumably the 20% I saw over the weekend was from another way of estimating. In some ways it doesn't matter 20% is still utterly terrible. However local elections are not the same as a GE. And potentially a GE were there are some stark choices to be made.
In 2024 people were utterly sick of the sight of the Tories and voted thusly. Labour won a huge majority on a pretty poor national vote share. That can be done again.
The Sky method, which seems to flatter the Tories and Reform, scales up somewhat crudely from last Thursday’s votes by modelling and adding in a similar swing for the council areas without elections. The BBC model is more sophisticated and allows for the effects of things like parties not fighting every ward, or not putting up a full slate in a multi-member ward, and draws on historical modelling to try and estimate how the country would have voted if everyone had participated on the same basis, as happens in a GE.
Regardless, both the previously reported BBC and Sky national equivalent vote estimations were also flawed if for no other reason that they were announced early, before quite a lot of the votes were counted. I remember on Friday reading, on PB I think, that the second of them had been announced, I can't remember which one came first.
Does anyone know if in order to reflect the final vote tally the academics behind either the BBC or Sky have reviewed and updated their initial estimates of NEV, or intend to do so?
The BBC model works off what data it has, so doesn't need to wait for all the results to produce an estimate. As I recall the figures moved slightly as more of Friday's results came in?
Comments
I also agree that there’s been too much swapping leaders as an attempted panacea. Changing leader all the time is like changing the manager of your football club all the time. They’re not necessarily the problem. Is Kemi the best person for the job? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I don’t think there’s a rush to replace her.
Although, standing shouting for the ball "To me"" Give it to ME!!!" does rather negate the bility to use that argument.
She’s had her 15 minutes of fame and she should have organised properly before coming out of the woodwork.
Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
·
1m
Labour MP: "Catherine West is no longer trying to appoint herself as PM, she's trying to appoint herself as Graham Brady."
Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
·
1m
Labour MP: "Catherine West is no longer trying to appoint herself as PM, she's trying to appoint herself as Graham Brady."
I expect that is the seat destined for Burnham to fight
Go over the top or wait?
More importantly, who is behind her, because a backbencher isn’t about to launch a serious leadership challenge herself?
It is the figure we use for the PB predictions competition.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ljrp76ywxo
It's a bit like the government saying that leaving the EU was a terrible policy mistake and we are going to carry on with the policy. Which surely couldn't happen could it?.....
This has the advantage that it would save Camden council some money as they could simultaneously run the by-election for the ward where the elected Green turned out to be ineligible to be a councillor.
I submit that this is a better plan than Catherine West’s.
In 2024 people were utterly sick of the sight of the Tories and voted thusly. Labour won a huge majority on a pretty poor national vote share. That can be done again.
Three more Labour MPs call for Starmer to quit after PM's make-or-break speech
Sir Keir Starmer vowed to prove his “doubters” wrong as he fought back against calls for him to quit. But three more Labour MPs have called for the PM to quit, taking the total to 36.
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-local-elections-england-scotland-wales-2026-starmer-12593360
NEW THREAD
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdepdpwpp5jo
Or maybe the King should just skip ahead and appoint Burnham as PM now, recognising the clear will of the people? Or maybe the King should just abdicate and let the King of the North take over? (All of these are better plans than anything Burnham’s team have come up with.)
Never say never after dieselgate (which was only software) but I highly doubt the rewards of cheating EuroNCAP would be balanced by the immense reputational risk of being caught.
There are, of course, lots of cars that can't be imported into the EU because they're too dangerous. The UK could withdraw from EuroNCAP (it is part of the EU after all) and we could get Great Wall Steeds as a Brexit benefit.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ljrp76ywxo
RIP
Does anyone know if in order to reflect the final vote tally the academics behind either the BBC or Sky have reviewed and updated their initial estimates of NEV, or intend to do so?