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.

I'm kind of stunned by the collective amnesia about Brexit. Is it a media thing or is it just too horror-triggering a catastrophe to mention in polite company? Anyway the whole European project appears to be in jeopardy, almost as much as the American project. Putin & co. must be licking their lips. These people (including Starmer) seem profoundly stupid. It's fucking unbelievable.

Well, you're part way there with it being a media thing. Yes, the media being largely owned by anti-eu billionnaires has no wish to raise the brexit disaster. The BBC is controlled by supporters of the Tory party, and since it was the Tory party who implemented the brexit disaster from pitiful start (Cameron) to ludicrous end (Johnson), they won't mention it either. Tories and Labour are both terrified of "the right" like rabbits in a headlight, and both think salvation lies in making more and more "right friendly" decisions, such as "never even mention brexit again".

I cannot emphasise enough that the present labour party under Starmer has an almost magical ability to either avoid making any decision, or else make inexplicably wrong and feeble decisions. This results in an almost policy-free approach to the election. Starmer is being gifted this election because the tories have imploded and their support is now split between the right and the extreme right, with the extreme right having Farage and reform to vote for. One of the wrong and feeble decisions the labour party has made is to never mention brexit. 

Yes. It's mind boggling. It's insane. It's the patient complaining of headaches and dizzy spells sitting amongst puzzled doctors, none of whom will mention the axe in his skull.

Edit: This was meant to be @ Chyron. I am out of practise.

I think Starmer's plan is to slowly and quietly to undo brexit. Which is probably the right way to do it if it's going to be done. Making it a live political issue just empowers Farage and he's already empowered enough.

I agree that the EU's starting to crumble. And I blame that mainly on their outsourcing foreign policy to Washington. An EU that stands any chance of surviving the century needs to put its own interests before those of the US, not the reverse. The US blowing up Nord Stream should've been seen as an act of war against the EU.

But an EU that's both self-harming to keep the US sweet and doesn't work to the appreciable benefit of the everyday people of its member states has no future.

Personally I *really* don't want brexit to be an issue again. It prevented any real politics from happening for like a decade. The EU is a big complex thing and honestly I think anyone who's unquestioningly either for or against it is deluded. There's *quite clearly* good and bad to it. Ultimately I don't care whether we're in or out, I care far more about industrial policy, fiscal and monetary policy, foreign policy, housing etc.. Some of what I'd want would be easier within the EU, some without the EU.

If Starmer quietly undoes brexit then fine, I'm cool with that, so long as he does it in a way such that Farage just looks like a whiny nit-picker when questioning it. The anti-democratic nature of that bothers me a bit but at this point I don't fucking care, I just don't want brexit blocking us from doing actual politics for another fucking decade. 

 

voting day! I have done a vote. I am sure my droplet in the bucket of centre-left policy support will make a difference. *sad trombone continues*

Most of my votes over the years were cast for losers.

I've never voted for a winner. Continuing that this year with the Greens.

I also voted for a bunch of losers, although technically they are on course for a landslide win.

 (dance)

Went to bed around 2 this morning. We had intended to stay up and listen to the results as they came in. Unlike previous years, once the exit poll had made the outcome clear, it was so dull that we gave up. My wife, who has become more left wing and radical than me, started to listen to results again at 3:30. Sadly she didn't realise her Bluetooth headphones hadn't connected so she woke me up too. Up at 6:30 to get son's stuff ready for work. Absolutely knackered and, frankly, the boring story of my night is more interesting than the election.

Local candidate Becky Cooper won. She's about the only thing keeping me in the Labour party. The East Worthing and Shoreham seat also went to Labour which is a bitter pill for Carl Walker who did all the donkey work to overturn a big Tory majority and was then barred from standing. Some right winger from Lambeth was parachuted in; a young boy who's done plenty of dirty work for Keir as Lambeth council chief whip, getting his more left wing colleagues barred and suspended.

PS he's so committed to East Worthing and Shoreham that he stayed on as a Lambeth councillor throughout the election.

Christ. Well at least it (the national result) bucks the global trend. Amazing the tories fluffed it so badly. Now they're trying to horn in on some Trump action.

Yes, that is the story. The tories fluffed it badly. They grew accustomed to getting away with whatever they wanted, took their eyes off the job, and I don't believe they have done any actual government for several years.

Incidentally, I doubt the fragrant Nigel Farage will do any work in his constituency, so the good electors of Clacton are no worse off than they were before, the outgoing tory member, Giles Watling being a "socialite" and luvvy of the right-wing persuasion, more accustomed to pissing it up in the Garrick Club than dealing with his constituents' problems.

"they have done any actual government for several years"

Ir will be interesting to see if Starmer can continue to colour inside the lines as he has thus far managed.

Well, yes. His lines circle aound things like "listening to people with different opinions", "governing for all", but curiously his instinct is to censure, expel and disempower those he disagrees with. Rachel Reeves recently commented that there's no place in the labour party for people who don't share our views. She said this while 1) criticising a long-standing labour centerist who looks to have had his social media accounts hacked and 2) just after welcoming an ex-tory extreme-right-wing MP who wished to join.