What gets me about a Burnham by election is every by election I was involved in took loads of party resources. So Starmer is in the position of resourcing the campaign of a guy who actively wants to replace him?

Tomorrow evening's piece of post-SP26 analysis will be how each party's vote was spread across the country, and how it changed. This is one of the starkest maps: the complete backfiring of Scottish Labour's much talked about "constituency strategy", as support crashed across the Central Belt.

His letter:

I wanted to see who did the poll before sharing. My suspicion that Streeting wouldn’t win the membership seems right (so far). labourlist.org/2026/05/labo...

The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards www.economist.com/britain/2026...

“A reminder that this task remains outstanding” Thanks! I don’t let standards slip.

NEW: What exactly happened in the local and devolved elections in England, Scotland and Wales last week? @persuasionuk.bsky.social has some new polling out today which offers a first glimpse. Thread here on top line findings from each nation. 🧵

This really is quite something. In the 15 years @carbonbrief.org have tracked UK media, 2025 was first ever year where more newspaper editorials opposed #climate action than supported it. Meanwhile, the *actual* climate crisis deepens by the month. Go figure.

Absolutely fuck you, Amazon. When I bought this device there was no mention of my purchase being time limited at your discretion. It does not require software updates, so the only "support" necessary is that kindle books are available in a format that can be sent to it. This shouldn't be legal.

This is Higher Education now. The dumbest thing I have ever seen. Hey, taxpayers! You paid for most of this! It's all being thrown into a burning dumpster! *Slow handclap of all slow handclaps*.

I am unconvinced how Streeting could win the leadership election. Even with something like Single Market membership, I feel a bit like factionalism is too deeply rooted in the Labour Party for that to overcome.

I just signed this and hope you do too.

Sign please folks c.org/pcXwsDxRM4

Wake up! The House of Commons Education Committee says fifty - yes fifty - Higher Education Institutions are at risk of insolvency within the next three years. Wake up! committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

Friends have started messaging to ask if the tracker is back yet. I’m afraid it is…

Starmer can’t go yet. There is still another set of local elections next year to lose councillors and mayors at before he finally goes.

Memories of this coming back today

This was of course just before Keir joined Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet

🧵/ Let's put Labour's local election results into perspective... They lost 58% of the seats they were defending, the 10th worst performance for any party in the last sixty years and the 5th worst for a govt. This compares to the Tories losing 48-53% in the locals prior to their landslide defeats.

Now these are going up you just see the scale of Labour’s losses in so many council elections.

I spent way too long this weekend correlating 81 census variables with local election results, so you don't have to. Enjoy! datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QQQ3D/7/

In today's Irish Times, @emptywheel.bsky.social and I talk about Pizzagate, Jack Posobiec, and the Irish Fuel Protests. And why the increased attention paid to Ireland by American far-right social media influencers is more sinister than you probably realise.

Wales 2026 under the new system: the bonus is split between two parties: Plaid (+9.4) and Reform (+6.1). But notice every party below 11% sitting under the line: small parties lose out. The S-curve is gentler than Scotland's, but it still bends.

My full Substack piece on this, with figures and tables comparing the 2021 and 2026 elections in Scotland and Wales is here: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Scotland 2026: look how far the SNP sits above the 45-degree "perfect proportionality" line? 27% of votes → 45% of seats. A +17.6% bonus — the biggest distortion of either election. When one party sweeps constituencies, MMP's top-ups can't compensate.

"There is little to no statistical relationship between Reform performance and Labour performance, but a very strong (negative) relationship between Labour and Green performance." @patrick-pme.bsky.social

Does that mean a new leadership is impotent in policy terms? Absolutely not! As @chrisdillow.bsky.social often points out there's *loads* of progressive policies that don't involve loosening fiscal policy. Indeed better (more liberal) immigration policy and EU policy would *reduce* the deficit!

Some more rigorous analysis from @patrick-pme.bsky.social confirming this earlier mid-results hot take: bsky.app/profile/robf...

When looking at the English results I keep thinking “glad we don’t use FPTP for local government in Scotland”

The “Blue Labour” strategy still being promoted by some on Labour right is premised on being able to win social conservatives while holding on to social liberals. Failure state for this strategy is failing to win social cons while alienating social liberals. Here is a map of that failure state:

It’s wild! Conservative MPs whose own local government base has just been wiped out will tell you, wholly sincerely, that things are going well.

The Newcastle Results!!! Absolute madness, a three way split between Lib Dems, Green and Reform. Labour have utterly cratered, they've lost 32 seats. new.newcastle.gov.uk/election/new...

With results for over 500 wards in, our @news.sky.com analysis finds that Reform are increasing their vote most (against 2022) in older, Leave-voting areas with lower levels of educational attainment that have less ethnically diverse populations.

Low turnout was the one prediction I was making. We will see how that might impact the result.

The electoral decline of social democratic parties is a well-studied phenomenon. If you want to understand what is happening to Labour, I recommend this (open access) edited volume by the world's leading scholars on this question. Other countries have elections, too. doi.org/10.1017/9781009496810

I know you’re joking but serious point here - I don’t think anyone has got to the bottom yet of why you get such provider variation in Lab vote destination. Feels important!

Here’s a chart using a selection of seats that shows you just how strong the gravitational pull away from the two traditional main parties has been in this election, a consistent pattern of flight from the Tories and Labour to ‘everyone else’.

We are dismayed by news regarding UG History, and other subjects, at Hertfordshire. This follows recent job losses at Essex and elsewhere, and makes clear the crisis in UK HE. The Society is in touch and working with historians at UoH. As ever, we invite contact from others affected #Skystorians

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

I still find it funny that people think if someone wanted to fix an election they would get loads of folk in a room to rub out and then remark papers instead of ballot stuffing or just swapping out the ballot box.

For the first time I did not triple check my ballot to see if I had accidentally put it next to the wrong name. I have never actually made this mistake (unless I didn’t notice).

I think so and hope the pressure to reform the electoral system continues.

Are we witnessing the end of two-party politics in Britain? @profjanegreen.bsky.social and @martamiori.bsky.social explore what this week’s elections could reveal about the future of UK politics using YouGov data for ITV News. Find out more ⬇️ https://bit.ly/42ioslS

Pretty close alignment across the aggregate polling seat projections, despite the different methods and variation in the call polls. This is a great representation of how big an impact marginals will have today:

🚨📊NEW report out today from @ipsosinscotland.bsky.social and @uofgpolicy.bsky.social - Does Independence Still Matter? Our modelling of drivers of voting intention for next week's Scottish Parliament elections says yes, by orders of magnitude more than traditional political issues. Read more here:

Economists warn Scottish parties guilty of ‘fiscal denial’ and failing to tell voters the scale of Scottish government’s huge challenges after SNP’s lack of financial discipline #Holyrood26 👇🏾🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🗳️ www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I watched a quite sober analysis of the current economic climate and one on AI from someone I trust on YouTube and now my homepage feels like it is mostly videos proclaiming the end times. I think there are serious issues but also that this isn’t conducive to the thoughtful discourse we need.

Holyrood polling average, one week to go projection (vs 2021 on new boundaries); AMS Ideal seats: SNP ~ 64 (+1); 41 Lab ~ 18 (-3); 21 RUK ~ 16 (+16); 24 Grn ~ 12 (+2); 18 LD ~ 10 (+6); 12 Con ~ 9 (-22); 13 (Projection caveats: ballotbox.scot/projections)