I mean, I'm sure the voters of Holborn and St Pancras might have something to say about that, never mind Labour MPs.

I mean the only credit I'll give Sunak over Starmer is at least when he tried this disastrous strategy of attempting to appease Reform over his own voters, that he didn't have an example of it completely blowing up in his face, to warn him.

Don't know what made me think of this Uh sir. I’m afraid all those players have retired and uh…passed on. In fact your right fielder has been dead for 130 years.

The official No. 10 photo of Gordon Brown coming back into govt is a bizarre one. Rachel Reeves looks like a minister presiding over some kind of ceremony or civil partnership. All part of Downing Street's amateur operation on more serious issues (like bringing Brown back).

As strange as it might sound, I actually feel that for the good of the country we actually need a relatively strong, sensible Conservative party as a guardrail against something far far worse.

In some ways the local election losses were even worse for the Conservatives than for Labour, because at least the latter have taken the crucial first step of acknowledging they actually happened

If these trends continue Morrissey will be moving back to Manchester

Of course Brown and Harman should have a role advising Labour, but the politics of this the day after that election defeat is not just tin eared, it's absolutely insane.

Luke Akehurst on X posting that it's somehow still because they haven't properly dealt with the left

No, this is the strategy working. First you lose a bunch of support, and then you just start gaining votes You see, at the moment, Labour have burnt off all but the most affluent liberal voters, the most repellent to real Labour. But soon they'll be gone and the coalition will be all real Labour

Besides FPTP, an under-discussed issue of how British institutions can process the emerging multi-party system is the House of Lords. The two largest parties in the local elections, the largest party in Wales, the largest party in Scotland, and the largest party in NI have 4/752 seats in the Lords.

This is beyond heartbreaking of where our country is going.

Are you actually telling me there's only one man who can save Labour and he doesn't even have a seat in parliament? Because if so lets have the closing down sale see what we can get for the fixtures and fittings and call it a day. It's pathetic!

I mean if he convinced a majority of Labour MPs that he should be PM, that's all that he needs to be appointed PM. Whatever the Labour Party's rules say, our constitution says whoever has the majority support in the house. You'd think he'd be best served having a proxy stand on that one platform.

I mean this and the appointment of Gordon Brown as a financial advisor would make absolute sense on absolutely any other day of the year, but to do it today makes it seem like it's his response to the historic defeat, which is unusual politics to say the least.

As a Labour member I'd take all these results coming in on the chin if we had a competent government, with a plan and a determination to do the unpopular things needed at the start with the likelihood it'll pay off for country and party by the next election. Instead we've got....whatever this is.

I believe we term this artwork "where the 2024 Labour vote is now".

The electoral system for Newcastle council has to be the worst of all time. Electing all 3 councillors for each ward at once has predictably resulted in nearly every ward having 3 councillors of the same variety. Or FPTP x 3. www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

I think we now have the answer

Yep Sunderland was starting to have a moment, I fear that all that nascent progress will soon be lost

Putting a campaign chief with no government experience in as Number 10 chief of staff really sealed the deal on this front. Deliverism was the core mantra of Starmer, but it's as if no one realised that you have to actually make it happen. It's not like a religion, you can't just rely on providence

There’s so much low hanging fruit in Labour government. Just put a bit of money into local policy, cleaner streets, support for old pubs and other third spaces. It’s pennies on the pound that Labour seem completely against.

Breaking: it turns out that a strategy that literally every political scientist went 'No, don't do that. That's nuts!' is, in fact, nuts.

We're taking FPTP to bold new exciting places.

Ah Scotland

After reading some of the election analysis I'm planning on listening to my Morrisey Sings the Songs of Leonard Cohen to cheer myself up.

someone just demanded to know who should replace Starmer, in a "aha can't answer that, can you!" kind of way, but at this point the honest answer is: literally anyone. he is so bad at this that literally anyone would be better.

On this “good night for the Tories” narrative, there is no world in which the main opposition party making net losses is a good night.

Labour has done a great deal of damage to itself and the country by making “win over a caricature of Reform voters” and “panicked stakeholder management” its only governing priority. Time to make “win over a caricature of Green voters” and “panicked stakeholder management” the aim instead.

A guess a lot people will be spending a lot of today checking some slowly changing numbers on a BBC webpage. If you enjoy that sort of thing and want it to be a more than annual occurrence - can I recommend getting into county cricket?

These people are just so monumentally stupid.

Whilst not been very good at the latter either.

Stand by my theory that Labour's main problem is that they see governing as secondary to politics

You don't change a pilot midflight

You don't change pilot during a flight

Who becomes livid because David Gauke got a knighthood? Personally, I find the (unlikely) idea Starmer did it just to drive Badenoch insane cheeringly hilarious.

I’m pleased to see people realising this morning that a Lab>Reform seat change can happen because Lab>others and Con>Reform. The underlying vote flow evidence has been screaming this since autumn 2024 😎.

Can’t understand why Shabana Mahmood telling white liberals to fuck off didn’t shame them all into voting Labour.

If Reform do as well as expected, I'll be reposting this on the hour all day tomorrow.

McSweeney-ism will lead to Reform winning a majority on 30% of the vote unless Labour changes course immediately, it may already be too late. It breaks my heart that so much of England looks to Trump's America & says that we want some of that chaos, corruption, cruelty and incompetence here too.

Of course FPTP is ridiculous for a modern democracy, and a form of PR is long overdue, but I'm not sure PR will save us from Reform. On current polling FPTP will likely result in a Reform minority government, or Reform / Tory coalition, whilst PR will just give us the same Reform / Tory coalition.

Who would've thought that Labour following the exact same playbook as Rishi Sunak would've had the exact same outcome?

As people get ready to vote in the Scottish Parliament election please be careful of the spoiler operation which is 'Independent Green Voice'. They are listed second on the regional ballot paper in South of Scotland with the Green Party further down. IGV is a right-wing spoiler operation.

I guess whoever has the copyright for this photo won't be raking it in after all.

What an extraordinary 24 hours for Arsenal football club. They totally outfought Simeone's Atletico Madrid and have a shot at immortality over the next four games.

Crap like this reinforces to me that Labour have a moral duty to a) get their act together fast and b) implement electoral form to correct the injustice of a far right party (well any party really) winning a majority on circa 30% of the vote.

With the sequel of “he also stabbed a Muslim man”. He stabbed his friend in Southwark then travelled to Golders Green, noticeably not stabbing anyone else between the two! I think we can reasonably surmise both had specific (and different) motives!

My heart aches for the British Jewish community. It should go without saying, but there is absolutely no justification for anti-Semitic terrorism. Anyone who equates Jewish people with the actions of a foreign govt to justify their anti-Semitism is brain dead, racist and frankly beyond contempt.

I know it’s a bot, but that is an incredibly unfortunate picture selection.