I genuinely meant to put this in Politics but forgot.

Aha! I still have The Power.

Not sure what's going to happen in my constituency. My current MP, Mhairi Black is stepping down, and I know nothing of the new SNP candidate. The SNP seem to be in a bit of turmoil right now, what with what may or may not be dodgy financial goings on, the infighting and all that. The polls seem to indicate that Labour could win the constituency back. Either way, I don't think there's much risk of the Tories getting in round here.

Thanks for moving it!

And yeah, the SNP seem to have imploded a bit. Also narrowly avoided electing a socially conservative leader.

Which is, I think, an inherent problem with parties that are not rooted in a particular political economy. Like the Tories can be relied on to represent the interests of capital, Liberals will represent the interests of the bourgeoisie and Labour were supposed to represent the interests of ... labour. If they're not grounded in a particular theory of political economy then they can, and likely will, do weird 90 degree turns at times.

Which is why I'm not 100% comfortable voting Green despite very much liking most of their policy.

Obviously that grounding is not working very well for Labour currently. 

I get an average of 3 emails every day now begging for money. In addition I get asked to volunteer for canvassing, leafleting etc. almost every day. Some of the begging ones are targetted, e.g. "we see that you haven't set up a regular donation...".

I know the tories are a bunch of rich fucks, but with donations to labour now exceeding those to the tories by up to 15 times, the cries of poverty sound hollow.

There's a smell to the way things are organised as well. I can understand why labour might not want to spend a fortune on seats they're sure they won't win, but actually instructing local candidates and constituency parties not to fight, to the extent of removing their access to canvassing systems, is beyond belief. At the same time ordering them to canvass in some other area which they see as a priority is like the crap on the cake. 

The smell, by the way, is down to Morgan McSweeney and just about every staffer at labour HQ, since the hard right of labour (sorry, obviously I mean the centre) now occupies every key admin position.

Yeah the "do not fight" thing is weird. The only explanation I can think of is that they want Reform to win against the Tories where they can. Either just to reduce the number of Tory seats as far as possible or because they'd *like* some Reform MPs on the opposition benches (to make them look more reasonable?).

I got a Tory leaflet with a Lord Kitchener style "Keir Starmer Needs You... To Vote Reform!" header and the rest was a list of Labour policies. In a seat where Labour have a good lead and Reform are nowhere.

There's something very fucking weird about this whole election. 

I think the weird thing is just that our press have decided it's Labour's turn, because Labour have installed the people and policies that our media owners wanted. So nothing Labour do is particularly questioned anymore (look at the difference in pushback a Starmer interview and a Corbyn one for example, or how shocked and angry Starmer immediately gets at even gentle dissent from an interviewer). So here we are with this election where the result is effectively tacitly arranged well in advance and they all know it. There's barely a rizla between them on any meaningful policy but people who write breathless columns and blogs about Westminster can get very excited about Red Team beating Blue Team and get their wallets inspected again when nothing much improves, and so on.

I live in a safe Labour seat these days, our current guy seems a bit of a wet blanket but at least isn't conspicuously as horrid as the current leading group (but he works with Reeves I think, it may just be a matter of time and anonymity). Cons look a far distant second, Reform predicted to flop completely here at least. I'll probably vote Green, just to throw a droplet in the bucket of "look, these vaguely centre-left policies, they are popular!" that might exert a tiny pull on the parties that actually get in power. Haha *sad trombone*

We've had a few leaflets in but very little activity, I remember in 2017/19 there were canvassers and posters up all over the place. Just a further illustration that there's nothing meaningful about to change. Mind you I went out mountain biking in Surrey last week and there's a lot of Reform posters up around those villages! A lot of rich racists in that neck of the woods who want to protest the Tories.

True. It really is amazing how smiley and relaxed the meeja is when talking to NICE labour people like Keir and Rachel. There are bugger all posters up around here, although I know from the posh houses with union Jacks flying in the gardens that reform will garner a few votes. We've had a load of paper crap in the last few days, and there's some kind of effort from some sweet-looking anti-abortion candidate who keeps pushing medical photos through our letterbox. We did have a canvasser from the labour party, but he didn't hang around when I told him I was voting labour. I vaguely recognised him, and I'm pretty sure he was one of the troops when I last gave the local CLP any help back in 2015. I'm also pretty sure he didn't recognise me and I didn't start a lively chat going, even though he was a decent man.

God help us though. Starmer, McSweeney, Streeting, Reeves (either of the fuckers), Akehurst, Rt Hon Loses will to live...... I remember listening to Alexei Sayle on his "Imaginary Sandwich Bar" radio show a couple of years ago. He recalled his sense of hope that somebody genuinely decent might get to lead the labour party when Corbyn was elected, and his feelings of despair as the machinations against him began. They are, he said, "Really horrible people." That says it for me. And there isn't really any hope, because just like The Donald has packed the judiciary and the Supreme Court with rightwing morons, so Starmer has packed the NEC and just about every staff position in the labour party with hard-right labour buddies. 

Sorry for rambling. Honestly, I promise not to reveal that hurricanes and earthquakes across the world are steered by electromagnetic instructions from covid vaccinations.

Yup, that all rings very true.

Reform are really the winners in all this. The fact that Farage has made himself politically relevant again, despite Brexit not being a particularly live issue, is kinda stunning.

Absolutely enabled by both Labour and the Tories unwillingness to actually *do* anything of course.

Not saying they're going to get a ton of seats or anything. But they're definitely going to be politically relevant for the next few years.