Tories are quite entitled to enjoy their first bit of good news since before the Brexit vote.
BTW it does seem that Kemi Badenoch is cutting through, she featured very positively in the recent episode of the News Agents, where a focus group member described her as Thatcher with a sense of humour. Whilst said voter could not currently vote Tory, the potential is clearly there.
I suspect a great deal of the cut through is smoke and mirrors. If I were a Tory desperate for a win at the next General Election I would be disappointed that she now has her feet firmly under the table. I don't think her arrogance and unquestioned self belief will not go down well under scrutiny. But then I have no intention of voting for her so it is none of my business.
My hunch is that it’s real. She’s popular with her own tribe in a way Hague and Milliband were as LoO.
Don’t begrudge her arrogant self belief, which is a necessity in her position post defeat.
The question is can she reach beyond her tribe. Some hints of that. But still only hints. She might struggle with Burnham.
She also benefits from having no serious challengers since the departure of Jenrick and the other turncoats, so safe for now and probably ip to the next GE.
I think Burnham is likely to do well. His first major test will be to see if his aura can be transmitted to the new GM Mayor.
I would not so much expect radical policy changes, but do expect much sharper presentation, some fresh faces in cabinet and a Labour party that feels good about itself again. Morale is important, and everyone likes a winner.
The underlying world conditions are looking better, with the US slinking away from its Iran war, Trump looking increasingly ridiculous and Russia under the cosh. Growth, inflation and interest rates are not too dismal, so Burnham may well catch the wind at the right time.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
As I predicted the day it was called, Burnham wins comfortably.
And all credit to all of you who did. I thought this was for Reform to lose and to be fair that is what they did. Tactically Robert Kenyon ought to have spoken after the count, might not have felt like it be he ought to have done. I know some returning officers don't allow losers to speak but they ought to be challenged.
I thought Kenyon was a reasonable candidate and remain unimpressed by Burnham. I said before he was a Southerner's idea of a Northerner and he still looks like that to me.
It is clear Labour did no work at all in this constituency during the GE - after all they didn't need to so that suggests their 2024 vote was understated for ultra safe constituencies.
Excellent news from Scotland and in many ways just as convincing a win as Makerfield.
I still don't get my head around Restore in Makerfield, what was all that ? Was it false flagging from Labour ? At least it didn't affect the result.
Burnham made the election about himself, and he won, well done for him. Nigel was probably not an asset for Reform. The Right needs to get its house in order, "A House divided against itself cannot stand" and it is about time we remembered Ronald Reagan, "Republican shall not speak ill of Republican". Hopefully Nigel will be beginning to bear that in mind otherwise I can see him wringing yet another crushing defeat out of the jaws of victory - that is what he did in Makerfield.
Reform didn't help themselves with their candidate, but then you could almost say that was predictable.
But it was obvious Burnham would win because, on top of his local popularity, it was a vote that allowed Labour-leaning folk (which historically is a good majority of voters there) to vote Labour despite any discontent they have with Starmer or his policies (or lack thereof); so selecting Burnham essentially neutralised the reason why Labour would otherwise lose such a safe seat to a protest vote. And, more simply, it gave people a clear reason to vote for him (which for any other candidate would have been Labour's main problem).
In Labour's safe seats (and some of the Tories', too, not that they have so many nowadays) it's quite common for the party organisation to be essentially moribund when it comes to data and campaigning.
When there is a shedload of candidates, the RO will only let the winner speak, as there's no justification for selecting certain losers to speak, and allowing them all to speak would obviously have been problematic and time consuming.
Restore isn't new but the latest of a series of far right outfits that pop up over the decades and score a few per cent in seats like Makerfield.
Now we just need a moderate, pro-EU breakaway Tory party and then there can be four parties fighting over the right-wing vote.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
No, it’s not. You can’t make any conclusions about how voters switched without detailed polling, particularly when turnout is only 38%.
Possible that Labour voters just stayed at home - and the inverse happened in Makerfield.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
You called it wrong. Badly.
Show some humility and admit it.
However people want to loo, at it, this really was a good result for the Blue team.
Clearly so. A win is a win, and beating Reform.
Perhaps the most interesting contest is now the GM Mayor byelection. That covers a big area of the NW, and Labour is going to need a strong candidate. How the Tories do there will be interesting.
You know what, I think the recriminations in Reform will be interesting.
I’ve challenged people,who called peak reform, like people who call the top of the stock market all the time, but I think @Big_G_NorthWales may be right, this is their high water mark. They did poorly yesterday in council by elections too.
Restore will deprive them of more seats than tactical voting.
Hang on this isn’t peak reform, they’ve been sliding all year.
They had arrested their slide and eer3 licking up slightly
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
Economics is the Tories strongest weapon.
If they can edge it on defence, immigration and crime and justice as well, I reckon that's a strong offer.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
[Reform] virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling.
They, and many others in fairness, are under the misapprehension that virtue signalling is a partisan activity of the left rather than political behaviour utilised by all.
It's intended, I'm sure, to mean a certain kind of pushy, tone deaf approach to signalling virtue, but that is a pitfall anyone can fall into.
See also being a snowflake. Just as common on the right as the left, just with different triggers.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
The Tories must have been significantly helped by the collapse in turnout; the voters that have stuck loyal to the party despite all its travails will be the sort who never miss an election and likely lean elderly many with postal votes. The Tories won because everyone else couldn't be arsed.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
All roads lead to Burnham becoming PM so he really should accept the inevitable.
Politics is a cruel game but rightly or wrongly most of the public seem to viscerally loathe Starmer and it’s hard to see how you could turn that around .
Whether Burnhams better popularity can survive when he becomes PM is another matter .
Oh come, come, come.
This result is a triumph for Starmer. Could Burnham have won without a popular figure like SKS in Number Ten?
Which makes it a triumph for Rupert Lowe
1) Starmer uses this famous victory to stay on 2) This strengths the Axis of Meme Parties 3) Reform will fall over shortly 4) Leading to Restore getting all their votes
Getting 3k votes is actually 29 dimensional chess move that guarantees a Restore government at the next election.
Given the poor performance of Reform and the Conservatives, now is the time for *Starmer* to call a GE. For the lols.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
All roads lead to Burnham becoming PM so he really should accept the inevitable.
Politics is a cruel game but rightly or wrongly most of the public seem to viscerally loathe Starmer and it’s hard to see how you could turn that around .
Whether Burnhams better popularity can survive when he becomes PM is another matter .
Oh come, come, come.
This result is a triumph for Starmer. Could Burnham have won without a popular figure like SKS in Number Ten?
Which makes it a triumph for Rupert Lowe
1) Starmer uses this famous victory to stay on 2) This strengths the Axis of Meme Parties 3) Reform will fall over shortly 4) Leading to Restore getting all their votes
Getting 3k votes is actually 29 dimensional chess move that guarantees a Restore government at the next election.
Given the poor performance of Reform and the Conservatives, now is the time for *Starmer* to call a GE. For the lols.
"The Palace cannot take your call right now, Sir Keir. The King is on a visit. To Manchester"
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Point (2) is quite obviously correct but they’ve been on a plateau for a while and at some point really needed to kick past it. That they didn’t last night feels significant - but maybe that’s just recency bias.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Point (2) is quite obviously correct but they’ve been on a plateau for a while and at some point really needed to kick past it. That they didn’t last night feels significant - but maybe that’s just recency bias.
Streeting won’t help himself or us by forcing a long contest where quite obviously none is necessary
I think he is mostly jockying for a cabinet post.
Burnham is clearly going to walk it. Half the PLP were in Makerfield wanting to touch the hem of his garment.
Yes, but forcing an extended contest during the summer isn't the way to make friends and influence people. Streeting would do better swinging behind a Burnham premiership and hoping his obvious ability (and the desire to get him back inside the tent) wins him the top role he seeks. If Streeting gets the noms and forces a contest which he'll lose badly, he damages his career (as well as our country, with months of uncertainty) and if he doesn't get the noms he also damages his career.
Really disappointing result for Restore. They'll shortly join Alba and Change UK in the discarded parties bin, which in many ways is the best news of the night.
For the party’s first ever foray into a Westminster election, I would say 7% is pretty good. Alba couldn’t manage 2% in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election and their best 2024 performance was 3%. Likewise, Change UK got 3.4% in the 2019 Euro elections. Soubry got 8.5% in Broxtowe at the general, but that was as the sitting MP (Gapes similar).
Also, I don’t think Restore are playing quite the same game. Their intent isn’t to win. Their intent is to keep Rupert Lowe’s social media income up.
One point I would make on Restore is that Makerfield has a history of relatively strong support for racist far right parties. The BNP used to be quite well supported there. So I think this may actually be quite a poor showing by them, in that context. Which is a shame, obviously.
They threw everything they had at it, were backed by Musk's social media operation and ended up with 7% of the vote in what, as you indicate, was about as fertile ground for them as they could possibly have hoped for. I don't see a future for this party.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen. I think the general point is when the topic is something solid other than immigration, the Conservatives can do well. Badenoch needs to get off TikTok and go 100% on economics for the next 3 years.
I forget who tipped it alas, but thanks to whoever mentioned the Conservatives at 3 or so for Aberdeen South
@Andy_JS . After almost ten years to the day he nailed Brexit.
Well done to Kemi and the Conservatives. It would otherwise have been their night.
A bit of caution @Andy_JS also predicted a cliffhanger/recount in Makerfield. While some of us predicted that Burnham would comfortably win with a majority greater than the Restore vote.
If someone makes two predictions and one fails and the other comes off at longer than evens, that's still a good result.
If I hadn't been feeling pessimistic and backed Conservatives yesterday at 4.5 in Aberdeen South it would've been even better.
And @Foxy didn't of course - he was one of the ones who poo-poohed the prediction of the Tories winning Aberdeen South.
I'm sure a gracious and humble apology will be forthcoming, though.
I will not hold my breath despite the Scottish Conservatives gaining this seat with such a comfortable majority.. But I did with a really nailed on local knowledge of Aberdeen South try to hint really hard that the Scottish Conservatives could pull off this gain from and SNP and the brilliant campaign they ran fighting for the Oil&Gas industry here over the last few weeks was cutting through but I was dismissed by Foxy who didn't even realise that Kemi Badenoch had already been up to visit the city twice during the campaign.
A big clue that the Scottish Conservatives were very confident Kemi Badenoch was a clear asset up here in the North East of Scotland on the doorsteps during the campaign was the fact that they had picked her gaining popularity during the Holyrood election! The biggest clue that the Scottish Conservatives were confident of gaining the seat was her last visit just a couple of days ago while Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and even Anas Sarwar were totally absent from their parties campaigns.
After I got married nearly 40 years ago I still remembering moving to the then constituency of Aberdeen South where Fitaloon lived and worked for an American Oil&Gas company and I still remember when we decided to walk to the polling booth on a nice evening after work to vote for the Conservatives in the 1992 GE little knowing that we helped the Conservatives achieve their only gain in that GE. But we still have great friends who still live there and who needs focus groups when you have a life long Scottish Labour voter friend telling you they were tactically voting for the Conservatives in this seat yesterday due to the devasting position of the SNP and Labour on the future of the the vital industry in the North East of Scotland.
And while I bet quite big for me on the Scottish Conservatives winning Aberdeen South, I also had a cheeky fiver on them in the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry by-election absolutely knowing they did not stand a chance in one of the SNP's safest seats in Scotland so seeing the Scottish Conservatives coming in 2nd was still a nice surprise.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
Yes, going on the economy is a much better way forward (particularly as Truss fades from memory like some fever dream). Badenoch cannot resist the Culture War clickbait though.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen.
Yes, I'm in favour, but I bet it won't signal a wider policy position for the party, or that it would be popular if it was.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
He could do worse than shamelessly stealing some oft quoted ideas from here.
Like merging income tax and national insurance for starters.
It’s perfectly possible to come up with left and left adjacent policies that deal with various issues.
The requirement is to have a leader. A leader takes on policies, find subordinates to manage them and backs those subordinates to get them done.
Starmer has repeatedly failed at the last two.
One of the experts on R4 made the point that, actually, Labour doesn't have that bad a story to tell - with some legislative achievements and with the economy starting to surprise on the upside - and it is possible that maybe they just simply need a better storyteller to get back to a 'normal' government midterm and be in contention again next time around.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
A pair of fairly dramatic results, Makerfield on a very high by-election turnout. And a major Conservative vote share in Aberdeen South.
For themes, I'm inclined to point to a reaction to problems with governance by bigwigs in edge parties, though arguably is a modest stretch in Scotland as the SNP are (were?) the establishment over these last years. There is also overlaid a reaction against Mr Starmer, and the "my friend Andy" Burnham personal vote.
I would like to see a detailed account of the Aberdeen South campaign.
Labour seem to have learnt the lesson of Sarah Pochin's vey narrow victory.
My only prediction was spot on: Restore Britain to get between 2% and 12% in Makerfield !!
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Extrapolating from the unique circumstances of the Makerfield by-election would be a very foolish thing to do.
What I am tempted to extrapolate from is Reform losing seats in by-elections that they had previously won. They'll be having seats to defend next May, and we'll be seeing losses there to offset some of their gains in seats not contested since before their surge in the polls.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
Another Scottish constituency last night contradicts this analysis I would say. Aberdeen was a stunning result for the Conservatives but the common factor with Arbroath is the collapse in the Labour vote. SNP slightly increased its vote share in Arbroath. Unfortunately Reform did very well there too.
I think the two main factors in Aberdeen South were the dying North Sea oil industry and the collapse in the Labour vote. The Conservatives took advantage of both.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
Whilst that is true, SNP voters were happy to turn out a month ago despite their mismanagement shenanigans...
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
Yes, going on the economy is a much better way forward (particularly as Truss fades from memory like some fever dream). Badenoch cannot resist the Culture War clickbait though.
That was to compete with Reform (in part, I'm sure she is genuine about it). If Reform fade a bit it's less necessary.
I maintain culture war fights from any side are popular with their voters, you need a bit of it to spice things up, but it cannot be the whole meal.
That's like Reform being a vindaloo, the Tories a dupiaza, and Restore a plate of dry chilli powder.
(There's a thread/buzzfeed article for you - whoch party is which curry?)
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
That's all very well but it would be a bit like someone telling me to stop using WhatsApp. My personal feelings about it don't really matter because so many of my friends and family use it for communicating so I'm pretty much obliged to if I don't want to miss out. That was the major stumbling block when I was trying to switch to a dumb phone. If you're a Gen Z who wants to quit social media but doesn't want to lose out among friends then you need enough of them to also quit.
All roads lead to Burnham becoming PM so he really should accept the inevitable.
Politics is a cruel game but rightly or wrongly most of the public seem to viscerally loathe Starmer and it’s hard to see how you could turn that around .
Whether Burnhams better popularity can survive when he becomes PM is another matter .
Oh come, come, come.
This result is a triumph for Starmer. Could Burnham have won without a popular figure like SKS in Number Ten?
Which makes it a triumph for Rupert Lowe
1) Starmer uses this famous victory to stay on 2) This strengths the Axis of Meme Parties 3) Reform will fall over shortly 4) Leading to Restore getting all their votes
Getting 3k votes is actually 29 dimensional chess move that guarantees a Restore government at the next election.
Given the poor performance of Reform and the Conservatives, now is the time for *Starmer* to call a GE. For the lols.
Can Labour afford a GE2026? Post GE2024 donations are nothing to write home about.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
Whilst I don’t disagree, nowhere did I make a suggestion about the rest of the UK or predicted a renaissance of Scottish Toryism. I love the idea of sane parties joining forces to oust the divisive SNP and Reform people, but in Scotland at least that’s easy to say and hard to do.
Tories won Aberdeen South because they won votes from all non-SNP voters. That’s self evident.
The Tories won because they fought on a policy that resonated with the voters. A lesson there...
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
Yes, going on the economy is a much better way forward (particularly as Truss fades from memory like some fever dream). Badenoch cannot resist the Culture War clickbait though.
That was to compete with Reform (in part, I'm sure she is genuine about it). If Reform fade a bit it's less necessary.
I maintain culture war fights from any side are popular with their voters, you need a bit of it to spice things up, but it cannot be the whole meal.
That's like Reform being a vindaloo, the Tories a dupiaza, and Restore a plate of dry chilli powder.
(There's a thread/buzzfeed article for you - whoch party is which curry?)
Greens must be masradi dhal. Vegan and generating a lot of wind energy...
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Landslide majorities have issues of their own, the biggest being party management. In contentious times such as these, huge chunks of MPs are all going to be pulling in different directions. It doesn't help that the PLP is seemingly hysterical.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
He could do worse than shamelessly stealing some oft quoted ideas from here.
Like merging income tax and national insurance for starters.
It’s perfectly possible to come up with left and left adjacent policies that deal with various issues.
The requirement is to have a leader. A leader takes on policies, find subordinates to manage them and backs those subordinates to get them done.
Starmer has repeatedly failed at the last two.
Be fair.
Starmer has failed at all of the above.
Other than ID authoritarianism I can't think of any policies that represent Starmer.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen. I think the general point is when the topic is something solid other than immigration, the Conservatives can do well. Badenoch needs to get off TikTok and go 100% on economics for the next 3 years.
I agree Aberdeen was particularly favourable territory for such a policy but I do think that this is the sort of policy that the Tories need across the country. We need growth. We need to encourage investment in new and old technologies. We need to stop wilfully destroying small businesses. We need to make it easier for the young to buy houses and get going in their careers. Clear, practical policies with a strong economic twist are what is called for. Conversely we need to get away from the PC gender culture wars of the last few years, whatever side of the argument you are on.
Burnham will be a much better communicator than Starmer was and he is unlikely to select such an inept Chancellor. The job of being LOTO is going to get harder.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Politics people do talk about pivotal by-elections for decades. It'll be on the syllabus of both politics courses and TV talking heads for decades because it was a sliding doors moment. Arbroath and Broughty Ferry won't. Gorton and Denton won't. etc
And yes, reform are over. Done. They can't win seats, they're under attack on all fronts, they are now seeing elected members start to defect away from them, and even the great leader has had to withdraw himself from scrutiny.
They will continue to slide away as they have been all year. Great news for the Tories and for Labour and for decency. The challenge that mainstream parties still have is finding solutions to the godawful mess they have all created.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
Unless Foxy is in fact Doogie Howser MD the ban is not aimed at him.
Kids and teens have willpower too, they aren't being forced, the number of genuine 'addicts' out of those who say its harmful but still use it will be tiny.
It's a trendy thing to agree its harmful - and i agree that it is - but if all those in Gen Z who said it was were genuine it'd not be used as much. Actions speak more than words.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Point (2) is quite obviously correct but they’ve been on a plateau for a while and at some point really needed to kick past it. That they didn’t last night feels significant - but maybe that’s just recency bias.
Many voters like backing a winner - hence why voter recall for a winning party or candidate always seems to come out higher than what people did at the time - and, like the SDP when they were riding their wave in the 1980s, while a new party appears to be sweeping everything before it, there will inevitably be folks who jump on the bandwagon but quickly lose interest when the shine starts to come off.
That happened with the SDP and it will likely happen with Reform - as I did suggest way back when it was still on the up. That doesn't mean that Reform is over - but it does mean that its days out in front at the top of the polls are probably numbered, as Reform starts to lose its image as winners. That, coupled with the increasingly evident willingness of voters to come together to keep Reform out, makes Reform 'most seats' a clear lay for the next GE - the odds have already lengtened to 3.2 having once been down to around 2.0 (=evens).
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
You called it wrong. Badly.
Show some humility and admit it.
Irrespective of Foxy's humility, or lack of it, Aberdeen was a typical by-election in terms of miserable turnout. A good result from Badenoch, which will cement her position, and remarkable in being the first Conservative by-election win in Scotland In many decades (they last won a seat from another party in a by-election under Heath...), but not game changing.
In contrast, Burnham doubled the Labour percentage of the vote compared to the local elections only a few weeks ago, and on a turnout well above that of the general election. That's pretty well everything he could hope for, and a stake through the heart of Starmer's premiership.
I'm not a great fan of Burnham, but this was an undiluted triumph for him.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Landslide majorities have issues of their own, the biggest being party management. In contentious times such as these, huge chunks of MPs are all going to be pulling in different directions. It doesn't help that the PLP is seemingly hysterical.
At my local council there used to be handfuls of votes against party lines on both sides, when there was a large majority. Now it is on a knife's edge? Exrremely rare.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
He could do worse than shamelessly stealing some oft quoted ideas from here.
Like merging income tax and national insurance for starters.
It’s perfectly possible to come up with left and left adjacent policies that deal with various issues.
The requirement is to have a leader. A leader takes on policies, find subordinates to manage them and backs those subordinates to get them done.
Starmer has repeatedly failed at the last two.
Be fair.
Starmer has failed at all of the above.
Other than ID authoritarianism I can't think of any policies that represent Starmer.
Worshiping the Process State.
Contracting his moral compass to the Supreme Court.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen. I think the general point is when the topic is something solid other than immigration, the Conservatives can do well. Badenoch needs to get off TikTok and go 100% on economics for the next 3 years.
I agree Aberdeen was particularly favourable territory for such a policy but I do think that this is the sort of policy that the Tories need across the country. We need growth. We need to encourage investment in new and old technologies. We need to stop wilfully destroying small businesses. We need to make it easier for the young to buy houses and get going in their careers. Clear, practical policies with a strong economic twist are what is called for. Conversely we need to get away from the PC gender culture wars of the last few years, whatever side of the argument you are on.
Burnham will be a much better communicator than Starmer was and he is unlikely to select such an inept Chancellor. The job of being LOTO is going to get harder.
I'd vote for the least Nimby party, which officially is Labour. Not very much in practice but all the rest are out and out opposed to any kind of housing growth.
Streeting won’t help himself or us by forcing a long contest where quite obviously none is necessary
I think he is mostly jockying for a cabinet post.
Burnham is clearly going to walk it. Half the PLP were in Makerfield wanting to touch the hem of his garment.
Yes, but forcing an extended contest during the summer isn't the way to make friends and influence people. Streeting would do better swinging behind a Burnham premiership and hoping his obvious ability (and the desire to get him back inside the tent) wins him the top role he seeks. If Streeting gets the noms and forces a contest which he'll lose badly, he damages his career (as well as our country, with months of uncertainty) and if he doesn't get the noms he also damages his career.
The only way Streeting runs now, is as a tactical move with Burnham's tacit agreement to force a contest if Starmer doesn't resign on Monday, I think. He's not going to seriously challenge Burnham for the leadership.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen. I think the general point is when the topic is something solid other than immigration, the Conservatives can do well. Badenoch needs to get off TikTok and go 100% on economics for the next 3 years.
I agree Aberdeen was particularly favourable territory for such a policy but I do think that this is the sort of policy that the Tories need across the country. We need growth. We need to encourage investment in new and old technologies. We need to stop wilfully destroying small businesses. We need to make it easier for the young to buy houses and get going in their careers. Clear, practical policies with a strong economic twist are what is called for. Conversely we need to get away from the PC gender culture wars of the last few years, whatever side of the argument you are on.
Burnham will be a much better communicator than Starmer was and he is unlikely to select such an inept Chancellor. The job of being LOTO is going to get harder.
Stamp Duty and Student Loans are steps in the right direction. More of that please.
Abolishing all duties on commercial/industrial electricity and even cutting VAT on it would really undermine Labour on both business and green credentials. Stuff like that.
Housing is really difficult for the Conservatives because elderly landlords are such a core part of their current vote, and the rest have their house as their primary asset. They need to brave enough to challenge that - the private rental sector has doubled as a proportion of tenure in the last 30 years or so - are they willing to become the party of ownership again?
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
I think it will be talked about for decades, even if Labour lose the next election; it's an inflection point in the country's political history. And Rochdale is right about the change in mood and approach - I suspect a lot of Londoners don't fully grasp that.
So, is Burnham going to play the long game and wait till next week before he removes Starmer or is he going to go for it now?
A government that has been largely paralysed by indecision since it was elected has fallen into chaos over the last few weeks, reduced to Starmer strutting about at international conferences promising we will help with non existent forces. For the sake of the country I hope Burnham gets on with it. We need purpose and a sense of direction. It has been sorely lacking.
Oh great. Apparently James Adams (newly elected MSP last night) told his group leader he'd quit Aberdeenshire council if sent to Holyrood. So that's another by-election I have to get working on...!
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
That's all very well but it would be a bit like someone telling me to stop using WhatsApp. My personal feelings about it don't really matter because so many of my friends and family use it for communicating so I'm pretty much obliged to if I don't want to miss out. That was the major stumbling block when I was trying to switch to a dumb phone. If you're a Gen Z who wants to quit social media but doesn't want to lose out among friends then you need enough of them to also quit.
That's a fair point, but if it's that level a ban won't work anyway as people will 'need' to workaround it.
I'm highly skeptical that most who say it is harmful genuinely think that, as at the least they'd use it the bare minimum and no way 77% of Gen Z use it only for those essential social purposes.
Good luck to the new PM on increasing health, welfare, and defence spending to keep the MPs happy, without any cuts.
Oh, and whilst reopening the assusted suicide debate.
Vibes theory of governing being more important may be proven.
People here constantly emphasise the challenges.
However its worth noting the upside.
The new PM is going to have 2.5 years in Downing Street with a landslide majority.
If you can't make it work with a landslide majority, you don't deserve another term.
Fair point. The Starmer government seemed bereft of ideas and tentative from the start.
The MPs want to be led, and they will take chances if they have confidence in who leads them. Andy should go bold and tell them they trusted him to save the party, they need to trust him even if a proposal might sound unpopular. Go big.
What though? There's no money left, for real this time.
Not entirely true. Starmer's in love with digital ID and ruinous, technologically deficient authoritarianism,
Those should be popular with the public tendency, making his unpopularity more notable.
It'd help if we had a media that wasn't either thick as pigshit or complicit in a desire by the Government to track the proletariat scum and force them to take on digital ID or upload personal documents to do almost anything on the internet.
A reminder that the ban on Social Media for the young is massively popular:
That's all very well but it would be a bit like someone telling me to stop using WhatsApp. My personal feelings about it don't really matter because so many of my friends and family use it for communicating so I'm pretty much obliged to if I don't want to miss out. That was the major stumbling block when I was trying to switch to a dumb phone. If you're a Gen Z who wants to quit social media but doesn't want to lose out among friends then you need enough of them to also quit.
Agreeing that something is, or can be, harmful doesn't mean you have to stop using it. As you point out, it has benefits too.
I'm not going to stop using SM just as I'm not going to stop drinking either.
Wow! Kemi Badenoch just nailed it and its why I believe that she will be our next PM after the next GE long after Nigel Farage has bailed from his latest political vehicle of Reform while they descend into a vicious tribal far right war war with Rupert Lowe's Restore party..
X Kemi Badenoch@KemiBadenoch This is a significant result, and I want to start by congratulating @DLumsden_MSP on becoming the new Member of Parliament for Aberdeen South and the newest Conservative MP!
Makerfield was about one man’s job.
Aberdeen South was about thousands of jobs in oil and gas across our country and the future of an entire city.
Yesterday, the people of Aberdeen sent a message on behalf of the whole country. Energy security is national security. They know it is common sense to use our own oil and gas rather than importing it from overseas. They know it is madness to make ourselves poorer, weaker and more dependent at a time when even the government’s own intelligence says we are under threat. The first duty of any government is to keep its people safe. The Conservative Party will always put Britain’s security first.
What makes this result particularly significant is that many people who voted Conservative today have never voted Conservative before. I want to thank every one of them.
Many will have voted for us because they care deeply about Aberdeen and its future. Many will have voted for us because they are sick of the SNP’s shenanigans. Others because they are worried about what Labour’s policies mean for their jobs and livelihoods. Many voted for us because they wanted a strong local champion.
Douglas is that champion. He has lived in Aberdeen all his life. He spent two decades working in the oil and gas industry. He knows this city, he knows its people, and throughout this campaign he brought energy, optimism and a genuine belief in Aberdeen’s future. Wherever he went, he had a smile on his face and a positive message about what this great city can achieve.
The Conservative Party is working to earn the trust of the country again. I am grateful and humbled that Aberdeen looked at the choice before them and decided that the Conservative Party was the party that would fight for families, workers and business.
Thank you, Aberdeen. I will never stop fighting for you. Douglas will never stop fighting for you.
The Conservative Party will keep fighting for common sense, a stronger economy and a stronger country.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Politics people do talk about pivotal by-elections for decades. It'll be on the syllabus of both politics courses and TV talking heads for decades because it was a sliding doors moment. Arbroath and Broughty Ferry won't. Gorton and Denton won't. etc
And yes, reform are over. Done. They can't win seats, they're under attack on all fronts, they are now seeing elected members start to defect away from them, and even the great leader has had to withdraw himself from scrutiny.
They will continue to slide away as they have been all year. Great news for the Tories and for Labour and for decency. The challenge that mainstream parties still have is finding solutions to the godawful mess they have all created.
What would the heading be for such a politics course? How a small coterie on left wing agitators can mount a regime change by collecting less than 25,000 votes.
Morning all! Let’s talk Aberdeen South first. SNP absolutely scunnered by the usual collapse in SNP vote combined with all other party voters going tactical to oust them. Exactly what I was discussing with Tory activists at the Aberdeen count for the Holyrood election a few weeks.
People like me voting Tory - or them voting Labour or LibDem - is how we stop the nationalist menace. Can I also gently remind our Tory friends on here who rightly want to talk bout how their oil and gas policies won this that their previous policies were the same as SNP and Labour policies…
Congratulations to James Adams who gets elected to Holyrood in Lumsden’s place.
I think that over egging it in Aberdeen South. The SNP vote was down 4%, and SLAB down 19% but the turnout was down a massive 28% at 31%.
So tactical voting, but also voters in Scotland much less interested in Westminster politics than Holyrood, particularly SNP voters.
I am not convinced this good result for the Tories is generalisable even to other parts of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK.
You called it wrong. Badly.
Show some humility and admit it.
Irrespective of Foxy's humility, or lack of it, Aberdeen was a typical by-election in terms of miserable turnout. A good result from Badenoch, which will cement her position, and remarkable in being the first Conservative by-election win in Scotland In many decades (they last won a seat from another party in a by-election under Heath...), but not game changing.
In contrast, Burnham doubled the Labour percentage of the vote compared to the local elections only a few weeks ago, and on a turnout well above that of the general election. That's pretty well everything he could hope for, and a stake through the heart of Starmer's premiership.
I'm not a great fan of Burnham, but this was an undiluted triumph for him.
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
Politics people do talk about pivotal by-elections for decades. It'll be on the syllabus of both politics courses and TV talking heads for decades because it was a sliding doors moment. Arbroath and Broughty Ferry won't. Gorton and Denton won't. etc
And yes, reform are over. Done. They can't win seats, they're under attack on all fronts, they are now seeing elected members start to defect away from them, and even the great leader has had to withdraw himself from scrutiny.
They will continue to slide away as they have been all year. Great news for the Tories and for Labour and for decency. The challenge that mainstream parties still have is finding solutions to the godawful mess they have all created.
What would the heading be for such a politics course? How a small coterie on left wing agitators can mount a regime change by collecting less than 25,000 votes.
Most by-elections are largely irrelevant in the scheme of things. Some are notable because of a candidate, or things that happen in the campaign, or the fall-out. This is all of those plus the added context of the winner goes straight to Downing Street.
Wow, stunning result for the Tories in Aberdeen South, I really didn't expect that and it wasn't even close. Big boost for Kemi I would say. Also a vivid demonstration of how the public view these ridiculous policies of both Labour and the SNP in not exploiting our natural resources. I hope Burnham is paying attention.
Agree though I’d be careful about extrapolating sentiment about O&G from Aberdeen. I think the general point is when the topic is something solid other than immigration, the Conservatives can do well. Badenoch needs to get off TikTok and go 100% on economics for the next 3 years.
I agree Aberdeen was particularly favourable territory for such a policy but I do think that this is the sort of policy that the Tories need across the country. We need growth. We need to encourage investment in new and old technologies. We need to stop wilfully destroying small businesses. We need to make it easier for the young to buy houses and get going in their careers. Clear, practical policies with a strong economic twist are what is called for. Conversely we need to get away from the PC gender culture wars of the last few years, whatever side of the argument you are on.
Burnham will be a much better communicator than Starmer was and he is unlikely to select such an inept Chancellor. The job of being LOTO is going to get harder.
Stamp Duty and Student Loans are steps in the right direction. More of that please.
Abolishing all duties on commercial/industrial electricity and even cutting VAT on it would really undermine Labour on both business and green credentials. Stuff like that.
Housing is really difficult for the Conservatives because elderly landlords are such a core part of their current vote, and the rest have their house as their primary asset. They need to brave enough to challenge that - the private rental sector has doubled as a proportion of tenure in the last 30 years or so - are they willing to become the party of ownership again?
When was bravery in challenging (its own) vested interest ever in the same room as the Conservative Party?
As for Makerfield, I said at the start that Burnham would walk it and he did. Surprised at the majority but even so, this is a by election we will be talking about for decades.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling. In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
Why do you spoil good analysis with hyberbole?
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and; (2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
I think it will be talked about for decades, even if Labour lose the next election; it's an inflection point in the country's political history. And Rochdale is right about the change in mood and approach - I suspect a lot of Londoners don't fully grasp that.
It won't be talked about for decades.
It's significant now and will be ancient history once Andy Burnham loses office.
As I predicted the day it was called, Burnham wins comfortably.
And all credit to all of you who did. I thought this was for Reform to lose and to be fair that is what they did. Tactically Robert Kenyon ought to have spoken after the count, might not have felt like it be he ought to have done. I know some returning officers don't allow losers to speak but they ought to be challenged.
I thought Kenyon was a reasonable candidate and remain unimpressed by Burnham. I said before he was a Southerner's idea of a Northerner and he still looks like that to me.
It is clear Labour did no work at all in this constituency during the GE - after all they didn't need to so that suggests their 2024 vote was understated for ultra safe constituencies.
Excellent news from Scotland and in many ways just as convincing a win as Makerfield.
I still don't get my head around Restore in Makerfield, what was all that ? Was it false flagging from Labour ? At least it didn't affect the result.
Burnham made the election about himself, and he won, well done for him. Nigel was probably not an asset for Reform. The Right needs to get its house in order, "A House divided against itself cannot stand" and it is about time we remembered Ronald Reagan, "Republican shall not speak ill of Republican". Hopefully Nigel will be beginning to bear that in mind otherwise I can see him wringing yet another crushing defeat out of the jaws of victory - that is what he did in Makerfield.
Reform didn't help themselves with their candidate, but then you could almost say that was predictable.
But it was obvious Burnham would win because, on top of his local popularity, it was a vote that allowed Labour-leaning folk (which historically is a good majority of voters there) to vote Labour despite any discontent they have with Starmer or his policies (or lack thereof); so selecting Burnham essentially neutralised the reason why Labour would otherwise lose such a safe seat to a protest vote. And, more simply, it gave people a clear reason to vote for him (which for any other candidate would have been Labour's main problem).
In Labour's safe seats (and some of the Tories', too, not that they have so many nowadays) it's quite common for the party organisation to be essentially moribund when it comes to data and campaigning.
When there is a shedload of candidates, the RO will only let the winner speak, as there's no justification for selecting certain losers to speak, and allowing them all to speak would obviously have been problematic and time consuming.
Restore isn't new but the latest of a series of far right outfits that pop up over the decades and score a few per cent in seats like Makerfield.
Now we just need a moderate, pro-EU breakaway Tory party and then there can be four parties fighting over the right-wing vote.
Remember they tried that and it sank without trace.
Comments
I think Burnham is likely to do well. His first major test will be to see if his aura can be transmitted to the new GM Mayor.
I would not so much expect radical policy changes, but do expect much sharper presentation, some fresh faces in cabinet and a Labour party that feels good about itself again. Morale is important, and everyone likes a winner.
The underlying world conditions are looking better, with the US slinking away from its Iran war, Trump looking increasingly ridiculous and Russia under the cosh. Growth, inflation and interest rates are not too dismal, so Burnham may well catch the wind at the right time.
Plus I suspect that the SNP's mismanagement shenanigans didn't exactly help enthuse their vote to come out.
But it was obvious Burnham would win because, on top of his local popularity, it was a vote that allowed Labour-leaning folk (which historically is a good majority of voters there) to vote Labour despite any discontent they have with Starmer or his policies (or lack thereof); so selecting Burnham essentially neutralised the reason why Labour would otherwise lose such a safe seat to a protest vote. And, more simply, it gave people a clear reason to vote for him (which for any other candidate would have been Labour's main problem).
In Labour's safe seats (and some of the Tories', too, not that they have so many nowadays) it's quite common for the party organisation to be essentially moribund when it comes to data and campaigning.
When there is a shedload of candidates, the RO will only let the winner speak, as there's no justification for selecting certain losers to speak, and allowing them all to speak would obviously have been problematic and time consuming.
Restore isn't new but the latest of a series of far right outfits that pop up over the decades and score a few per cent in seats like Makerfield.
Now we just need a moderate, pro-EU breakaway Tory party and then there can be four parties fighting over the right-wing vote.
Possible that Labour voters just stayed at home - and the inverse happened in Makerfield.
Two big takeaways:
Reform are over. They can’t win by-elections, when they win council elections they shed councillors because they are racists or mad or even the ones they keep are in capable of the basics. And they virtue signal like crazy having said they would scrap all the one virtue signalling.
In essence, most voters aren’t racist fuck morons as Farage hopes they are. They’ve seen through him, they care not for cockwomble ex-Tory grifters like Jenrick, and the slide to Restore will gather pace as what is the point of Farage now?
Burnham will not face a contest. Not after this. A 6k majority over Reform and Restore combined is hope for all the 24 intake that they can win in 29. By delivering change as they were elected to do. The first change? Taxi for Starmer.
A for what Burnham will do, well there’s a big challenge there. But he’s already shown the way in GM so expect a lot of that to copy across. Invest in place - streets, communities, facilities. Scrap daft targets and let the police police. Pride in yourself and your town and your country. That worker bee ethos is desperately needed.
As Thatcha once said, Rejoice
If they can edge it on defence, immigration and crime and justice as well, I reckon that's a strong offer.
(1) This by-election won't be talked about "for decades", and Burnham probably won't even be PM in 3 years time, and;
(2) Reform are not "over"
The tea leaves might be starting to tell us some quite interesting things, but don't overdo it.
It's intended, I'm sure, to mean a certain kind of pushy, tone deaf approach to signalling virtue, but that is a pitfall anyone can fall into.
See also being a snowflake. Just as common on the right as the left, just with different triggers.
https://bsky.app/profile/luketryl.bsky.social/post/3mod7vtcxl22t
Even 77% of Gen Z agree on how harmful SM is:
https://bsky.app/profile/luketryl.bsky.social/post/3mod7vvnajk2t
Reform have now lost six by-elections in a row in England, Scotland and Wales.
Their national poll rating is 26% – below Labour in 1983 – and Farage’s approval rating is -37.
They’re very far from the voice of the people and need to stop being treated as such.
A big clue that the Scottish Conservatives were very confident Kemi Badenoch was a clear asset up here in the North East of Scotland on the doorsteps during the campaign was the fact that they had picked her gaining popularity during the Holyrood election! The biggest clue that the Scottish Conservatives were confident of gaining the seat was her last visit just a couple of days ago while Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and even Anas Sarwar were totally absent from their parties campaigns.
After I got married nearly 40 years ago I still remembering moving to the then constituency of Aberdeen South where Fitaloon lived and worked for an American Oil&Gas company and I still remember when we decided to walk to the polling booth on a nice evening after work to vote for the Conservatives in the 1992 GE little knowing that we helped the Conservatives achieve their only gain in that GE. But we still have great friends who still live there and who needs focus groups when you have a life long Scottish Labour voter friend telling you they were tactically voting for the Conservatives in this seat yesterday due to the devasting position of the SNP and Labour on the future of the the vital industry in the North East of Scotland.
And while I bet quite big for me on the Scottish Conservatives winning Aberdeen South, I also had a cheeky fiver on them in the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry by-election absolutely knowing they did not stand a chance in one of the SNP's safest seats in Scotland so seeing the Scottish Conservatives coming in 2nd was still a nice surprise.
Labour will walk the GM mayoral election by a country mile
Even in the local elections Labour came second across the board, either to the greens or reform
I hear the lady who is CEO for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority will be the candidate.
And saying that the Restore vote was less than the BNP vote in the seat in 2010; supporting the point I made above.
It is perfectly possible to come up with Digital ID that *protects* personal data.
But government (both political and permanent) is institutionally opposed to that.
The ban will start out being popular with some. Then become a performative failure and then an embarrassment.
A pair of fairly dramatic results, Makerfield on a very high by-election turnout. And a major Conservative vote share in Aberdeen South.
For themes, I'm inclined to point to a reaction to problems with governance by bigwigs in edge parties, though arguably is a modest stretch in Scotland as the SNP are (were?) the establishment over these last years. There is also overlaid a reaction against Mr Starmer, and the "my friend Andy" Burnham personal vote.
I would like to see a detailed account of the Aberdeen South campaign.
Labour seem to have learnt the lesson of Sarah Pochin's vey narrow victory.
My only prediction was spot on: Restore Britain to get between 2% and 12% in Makerfield !!
What I am tempted to extrapolate from is Reform losing seats in by-elections that they had previously won. They'll be having seats to defend next May, and we'll be seeing losses there to offset some of their gains in seats not contested since before their surge in the polls.
I think the two main factors in Aberdeen South were the dying North Sea oil industry and the collapse in the Labour vote. The Conservatives took advantage of both.
Casino: "Did you see Andy Burnham won the by-election last night?"
Casino's wife: "Who's Andy Burnham?"
I maintain culture war fights from any side are popular with their voters, you need a bit of it to spice things up, but it cannot be the whole meal.
That's like Reform being a vindaloo, the Tories a dupiaza, and Restore a plate of dry chilli powder.
(There's a thread/buzzfeed article for you - whoch party is which curry?)
So I called it wrong in Makerfield
But it does demonstrate that Reform literally have no chance of winning a General Election!
If you do have a major, expect them to have vastly greater powers soon
Starmer has failed at all of the above.
Other than ID authoritarianism I can't think of any policies that represent Starmer.
Burnham will be a much better communicator than Starmer was and he is unlikely to select such an inept Chancellor. The job of being LOTO is going to get harder.
And yes, reform are over. Done. They can't win seats, they're under attack on all fronts, they are now seeing elected members start to defect away from them, and even the great leader has had to withdraw himself from scrutiny.
They will continue to slide away as they have been all year. Great news for the Tories and for Labour and for decency. The challenge that mainstream parties still have is finding solutions to the godawful mess they have all created.
It's a trendy thing to agree its harmful - and i agree that it is - but if all those in Gen Z who said it was were genuine it'd not be used as much. Actions speak more than words.
Striking here there has been barely any shift between the left and right blocs in Makerfield since 2024.
So Burnham successfully rebuilds the 2024 coalition on that basis.
That happened with the SDP and it will likely happen with Reform - as I did suggest way back when it was still on the up. That doesn't mean that Reform is over - but it does mean that its days out in front at the top of the polls are probably numbered, as Reform starts to lose its image as winners. That, coupled with the increasingly evident willingness of voters to come together to keep Reform out, makes Reform 'most seats' a clear lay for the next GE - the odds have already lengtened to 3.2 having once been down to around 2.0 (=evens).
A good result from Badenoch, which will cement her position, and remarkable in being the first Conservative by-election win in Scotland In many decades (they last won a seat from another party in a by-election under Heath...), but not game changing.
In contrast, Burnham doubled the Labour percentage of the vote compared to the local elections only a few weeks ago, and on a turnout well above that of the general election. That's pretty well everything he could hope for, and a stake through the heart of Starmer's premiership.
I'm not a great fan of Burnham, but this was an undiluted triumph for him.
Contracting his moral compass to the Supreme Court.
He's not going to seriously challenge Burnham for the leadership.
Abolishing all duties on commercial/industrial electricity and even cutting VAT on it would really undermine Labour on both business and green credentials. Stuff like that.
Housing is really difficult for the Conservatives because elderly landlords are such a core part of their current vote, and the rest have their house as their primary asset. They need to brave enough to challenge that - the private rental sector has doubled as a proportion of tenure in the last 30 years or so - are they willing to become the party of ownership again?
But by running in this one, I think he’s actually going to look better as Reform destroyer in chief.
NEW THREAD
And Rochdale is right about the change in mood and approach - I suspect a lot of Londoners don't fully grasp that.
A government that has been largely paralysed by indecision since it was elected has fallen into chaos over the last few weeks, reduced to Starmer strutting about at international conferences promising we will help with non existent forces. For the sake of the country I hope Burnham gets on with it. We need purpose and a sense of direction. It has been sorely lacking.
I'm highly skeptical that most who say it is harmful genuinely think that, as at the least they'd use it the bare minimum and no way 77% of Gen Z use it only for those essential social purposes.
I'm not going to stop using SM just as I'm not going to stop drinking either.
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Kemi Badenoch@KemiBadenoch
This is a significant result, and I want to start by congratulating @DLumsden_MSP
on becoming the new Member of Parliament for Aberdeen South and the newest Conservative MP!
Makerfield was about one man’s job.
Aberdeen South was about thousands of jobs in oil and gas across our country and the future of an entire city.
Yesterday, the people of Aberdeen sent a message on behalf of the whole country. Energy security is national security. They know it is common sense to use our own oil and gas rather than importing it from overseas. They know it is madness to make ourselves poorer, weaker and more dependent at a time when even the government’s own intelligence says we are under threat. The first duty of any government is to keep its people safe. The Conservative Party will always put Britain’s security first.
What makes this result particularly significant is that many people who voted Conservative today have never voted Conservative before. I want to thank every one of them.
Many will have voted for us because they care deeply about Aberdeen and its future. Many will have voted for us because they are sick of the SNP’s shenanigans. Others because they are worried about what Labour’s policies mean for their jobs and livelihoods. Many voted for us because they wanted a strong local champion.
Douglas is that champion. He has lived in Aberdeen all his life. He spent two decades working in the oil and gas industry. He knows this city, he knows its people, and throughout this campaign he brought energy, optimism and a genuine belief in Aberdeen’s future. Wherever he went, he had a smile on his face and a positive message about what this great city can achieve.
The Conservative Party is working to earn the trust of the country again. I am grateful and humbled that Aberdeen looked at the choice before them and decided that the Conservative Party was the party that would fight for families, workers and business.
Thank you, Aberdeen. I will never stop fighting for you. Douglas will never stop fighting for you.
The Conservative Party will keep fighting for common sense, a stronger economy and a stronger country.
This isn't about partisan politics at all.
It's significant now and will be ancient history once Andy Burnham loses office.