You know, if the stakes of the next election were lower, Blue Labour doing a “actually, the policies are really popular…it’s just that the people who say they like it didn’t vote for us” would be incredibly funny.

hey man just circling back on this: do you think the Labour Party would have won Gorton and Denton if they were pro-fracking

Both major parties suffering from "But I'm emotionally invested in this party, why aren't the voters?" syndrome.

Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.

[0011472] Dwarf gains no good thoughts from attending meeting, constantly tries to attend meeting.

Its doubly galling because Starmer and Labour have (and not without reason) spent years insisting Reform curious voters should be respected and taken seriously. Then with the Greens they're all "LOL you've been taken in by those nutters, U morons, don't be daft." Its playground level ignorance.

This is not a reasoned political response. Labour has spent two years making all the voting groups who backed the Greens feel unwelcome and unheard, and now attacks them for daring to back someone else. They believe Labour isn’t listening and Starmer seems determined to prove them right

A Labour leadership with both says "you must listen to these voters who don't share your values and take them seriously" and "you must NOT listen to *these* votes who *do* share your values - their preferred party should be dismissed as extremist" is headed for electoral disaster, and deservedly so.

Good analysis by Ben, my only addition is that I think psychologically Labour cannot accept that their median voter is closer to Hannah Spencer: still young, well off but still renting, female, and socially liberal than it is their desired median voter: Lee Anderson, and that is because of misogyny.

Think this is right and it is a big part of the major dysfunctions of our politics the extent to which it attracts men who think shouting at things makes them heroic fixers and the job of women is to get out of the way.

It's probably this and everyone should read it. jwmason.org/slackwire/po...

Fair play to Tim, the delivery here is quite funny

Sectarian. The sheer contempt and entitlement in that word. Thousands of Muslim voters just voted for a white, (I think) working class non-Muslim woman because they feel abandoned by Labour and agree with her views on a huge foreign policy issue and on immigration policy

The 2024 campaign was in fact very successful at getting a landslide for a traffic light coalition dominated by Labour

'Watch as I, the only non-race-baiter in the room, explain how this result was all down to one minority group voting as an unthinking mass...'

Okay so this is batshit

turns out McSweeney and the Blue Labour gang were wrong and the out of touch woke liberal elite Bluesky echo chamber bubble was right

hi lorraine, i'm here as a representative of the "things that age really well or really badly" company and, well, how do you feel about the latter

obviously today is a huge embarrassment for Matt Goodwin and for Reform, which is something that we absolutely ought to celebrate, but we must also remember it's a huge embarrassment for Morgan McSweeney and Maurice Glasman and all the Blue Labour weirdos, and that's important to celebrate too :)

RIP to a real one

Finishing third in a two horse race is a touching tribute to Starmer's beloved Arsenal

Well done to Nigel Farage for convincing Matt Goodwin to run for an urban seat with a large ethnic minority population. I think we now can be sure who did the numbers for Revolt on the Right.

I think this could be right, but does ignore that all of Reform are just like that? Their entire shadow shadow cabinet is comprised of the whiniest, weirdest losers from the Johnson administration. Which makes sense, nationalist populism is not the ideology of happy, successful people.

Labour's swing toward racism is perhaps the biggest unforced error in British political history; burnt their base to ashes and won them not a single vote on the right.

MATTHEW BADLOSS IS IT

we've run the numbers, we've done the sums, we've put our best guys on the job all night long and it looks like labour came third

SHE LIVES IN A HOUSE! SHE'S GOT HAIR! SHE EATS FOOD! THESE GREENS ARE ALL LIARS! etc., etc., etc. Now over to Richard Tice live from Dubai with his views on the cost of living crisis.

A Green win must mean that "left behind" voters forgotten by Westminster want open borders and legalised class A drugs. That's how it works right?

Generally, I am fascinated that the country literally next door has a proven working model for how to do fash right for European tastes, and how to gain more and more ground every time - and those freaks decided to import the demented template from one ocean away

I would say one of the main right-wing projects of the past twenty years has been gaming every web 2.0 platform into thinking the right-wing is much bigger and more influential than it actually is. And the people who have been most taken in by this effort has been the right wing

Without family voting, British Asians would have instead voted for…the guy who thinks that they are not British? Or the woman who both reputable polls showed in third place? Seems legit!

Francois Hollande: I had the growth and stability pact constraining me George Papandreou: I was constrained by the Troika Olaf Scholz: I was constrained by the FDP Morgan McSweeney: I was constrained by not wanting to admit that the 2024 election strategy might have had some flaws

also, concerning the outcome of Labour's "go fuck yourselves" strategy - we told you so, you fucking fools

Would also add to this, as I just had a brief convo with a pal about it, that "Electoral Commission Accredited" is not actually anything other than "the EC allow anybody to apply to be an election observer, you could do it if you asked them", so senior journos using that term should... behave?

I actually found him on LinkedIn and he’s posted his article with a comment like “I bet LinkedIn won’t like this!” What’s the clue here? The people on the business networking social media site won’t like it, but retired people on X will….

So just as a final word on this by election before polls close: No matter what the result, Gorton and Denton is supposed to be in a category of safe seat that should essentially render it uncompetitive. The fact that it isn't is a damning indictment of Labour's time in office.

the entire pitch of Cuomo was that sure he's a loathsome sex pest but he has what it takes to stand up to Trump, and then the hot leftist starts every phone call with "what's up big dog" and gets Trump to do whatever he wants.

"Actually I thought it was quite funny" is a good insight into how much of the 'British sense of humour' ends up being cruelty with extra steps, especially if you're punching down

The gist of BBC response is v "both sides": they did challenge a couple of other misleading claims/errors, but they assume complainants are seeking a *counter-argument* This simply confuses "were contrasting views expressed by the interviewer + interviewee" with "can you make up your own facts"

Even if we don't get STV or even SV as a result of this, at the very least I hope Labour will finally realise the horror of how badly they've fucked Left Bloc anti-Reform tactical voting. This should be a landslide crushing

OBI WAN: you don't need to see his identification STORM TROOPER (getting really hot in the suit): fine. move along. OBI WAN: and these aren't the droids you're looking for STORM TROOPER (lunch break was supposed to be an hour ago): i truly do not fucking care man. think for one second about my life

one of the things that stands out about Osborne is that he is absolutely sociopathic - he did not give a shit about the long term (or often even mid term) consequences of his actions, nor how they would affect people.

God no-one in this party can name anything

One of the weirder aspects of modern UK politics is "free market" think tankers who have never worked in the private sector lecturing businesses on how they're doing capitalism wrong

shotgun not me but think there's scope here for a proper, lengthy, meaty feature looking at every single policy area in Britain that's currently fucked specifically because of a decision George Osborne took, reckon you could make it an actual mag cover, his fingerprints are everywhere

Will die on the "Pikachu isnt a gen 1 starter" hill.

On the one hand YouTube is a giant radicalisation machine that is pushing existing global political structures to breaking point. On the other, there’s ALWAYS a video by a retired handymen showing how to fix the door slide on your specific brand of kitchen drawer. So I’m calling it a score draw.

(I also think this is probably a particular Home Office blindspot, particularly on the migration and borders side - they're used to making policy for people from outside the UK, who don't have much representation - now they've done something that complicates life for Brits and they're under fire...)

Make them put up huge 'visit Birmingham, the second city' posters on every building

Actually, thinking about it - you should get them watching the Map Men on YouTube. Basically comedy sketches containing actual education about maps www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...