Rishi! Sunak!

satire is dead

? NEW: Boris Johnson has been turned away from voting today after forgetting his photo ID pic.twitter.com/1ckxahXCir

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 2, 2024

Everything we’ve come to expect from Spaffer. I do hope he tried the ‘do you know who I am?’ line…

“Not a details man”… was just exclaimed over my shoulder.

I hear a politician got turned away, had no idea it BJ! Hilarious!😁

I’ll be staying up a bit to see some of the results come in but I don’t think they are all in till Monday?

On the ending of the Major years, my main takeaway for the current situation is how naïve I was to believe that the level of incompetence and corruption on show would sink the Tories for generations to come…

I hear a politician got turned away, had no idea it BJ! Hilarious!😁

Cynical me reckons it was probably a stage managed “get his name in the news again” stunt.

Oh Boris! Haha, what a card! Oh the hilarity!

That’ll be the news story now – it’ll all be a bit of a dead cat, a foil from stories of elderly folk getting turned away or any dirty tricks campaigning.

Never mind all that scandal, Boris forgot his ID!
Don’t look over there where we stopped a bus load of pensioners from voting…

Whilst it is amusing that Shagger forgot his ID, I’d much rather inhabit a world where I could simply forget him. Or he’d never been born at all. Either would do.

Might be worth staying up tonight to watch Laura Kuenssberg bawling her eyes out as the Tories poll less than the monster raving looney party.

If in doubt, blame the covid vaccine! This is one of the more bizarre excuses being trotted out already.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper is among the first senior Conservatives to speak since the polls closed, with the party expected to suffer losses.

He concedes the evening may be “difficult” but points to the “vaccine bounce” that Boris Johnson was experiencing the last time many of the seats up for grabs tonight were contested, which led to the party’s “best set of local elections since 2008”.

rumours, expectation management etc

but theres a lot of people saying its very close for Kahn

CCHQ apparently chipper tonight, I’m told.

As the polls close, they’re “utterly convinced” Susan Hall has won London, whilst Andy Street keeping his job in the West Midlands is on a “knife edge”.

*strong health warning but the former would be a monumental upset.

— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) May 2, 2024

But there aren’t enough Tories to carry out enough exit polls in enough places to be confident about anything like that. Especially when EVERY opinion poll in the run up has her trailing by a huge amount.

If a majority of Londonderry elect Hall, they frankly get what they deserve, she is patently not up to the task, not to mention a genuinely and demonstrably nasty human being.

If a majority of Londonderry elect Hall

Hall as Mayor of Derry would be quite something to behold.

I hate my mobile.

I wont edit it, I’ll leave it there. 😉

CCHQ apparently chipper tonight, I’m told.

As the polls close, they’re “utterly convinced” Susan Hall has won London

I suspect that one will soon come back and bite them on the arse

Clutching at straws more like

”Hey, we’ve found some polling that isn’t quite as catastrophic as we expected!”

Anyway, back to where I live…

I’m loving Stan Chows work tonight

We should permanently remove the edit function so that daft typos and predictive text are preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. 🙂

Anyhow, I’ve just found out they are not even counting the London mayoral votes until Saturday, so I’m off to bed!

But before that, here’s the customary weekly clip of a clueless Tory MP having their arse handed to them by a Nobel Prize-winning economist on Question Time.

Tory MP Bim Afolami: “We brought inflation down from 11.1% to 3.2% and, you know…”

Economist, Joseph Stiglitz: “You didn’t do it, the markets did it”

*cue audience applause*

#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/8n1AY9x2Tm

— David (@Zero_4) May 2, 2024

Especially when EVERY opinion poll in the run up has her trailing by a huge amount.

Not the final Survation poll which I think was yesterday – it gave Khan a ten point lead over Hall. And Survation have a good record.

It could of course work against him as it convinced me, and undoubtedly many others, that it was safe to vote for the Green candidate Garbett.

I am not a big fan of Khan and a narrow victory would be the best result imo as it would keep the Tories out whilst also increase the likelihood that he won’t stand again for a fourth term.

You did what, now?

If you’re going to waste a vote or essentially gift it to the Tories Ernesto, then surely you should have gone…

First results in from Sunderland and the Tories are down by 17% to virtually nothing and reform are up 17% taking all their previous voters

The result: A massive majority for Labour

A nice, comfortable bit of reading for the little fella

^^ Tories hemorrhaging votes to Reform too.

Good.

If you’re going to waste a vote

It’s not a wasted vote – the Green Party is both a serious party and a growing force in London.

If there was a chance of Hall winning I would have voted for Khan. All the polls have been showing a comfortable win for Khan well within the margin of error. I really didn’t totally decide until today, I doubt many people waited until the last minute to decide, certainly not enough to change a double digit lead. Although I do know of Muslims who were still in a dilemma today of how they should vote – being the official Labour candidate did Khan no favours.

For the record I voted  Green-Communist-Green.

You did pick up that the Tories changed the voting system to FPTP for the Mayor, yes?

Em yeah, why?

Edit: It wasn’t just a mayoral election – it was also an election for the London Assembly, some of which was PR.

For the record I voted  Green-Communist-Green.

I think you should change your name to Ernesto Communist-Green

The Tory on BBC, he was on QT I noticed, what a smug pos. Lol

It is obviously very early but the Greens must be happy with the first few results trickling in. I suspect that they will do reasonably well in London.

Yep, it’s nice to see the Greens not being squeezed out.👍 Id happily vote Green but that won’t be viable here in the GE.

Yeah the general election will be a whole different ballgame. There really appears to be the possibility that the Tories will suffer their worse defeat in 200 years, that would be a massive step forward imo. In contrast a small Labour majority would be a disaster as it would very likely signal another Tory government in about five years time.

Maximising the Labour vote at the general election should be the priority imo. Although many will argue that Labour under Starmer does not deserve that level of support.

I’m certainly worried the Tories could serve only one term in opposition. It’s entirely possible with the huge problems Labour face of they win the GE. It won’t be turned around in 5 years. I just hope that there is enough positive momentum for voters to keep the faith.

I’m not entirely convinced people have a long enough memory to punish the Tories for a generation, though they absolutely should be.

I’m interested and a bit scared of what the Tory party will morph into after a large election defeat. I can’t see much change really, I think they will head ever rightward in the continuing attempt to out Reform, Reform. The trouble with that is they will return to government in this even more extreme state at some point.

It’s not a wasted vote – the Green Party is both a serious party and a growing force in Londo

Not the wasted vote twaddle again.

Imagine voting for a party that doesn’t align itself with the Conservative values. Who’d have thought it.

There’s a very possibility come the general election that Labour will only serve one term for obvious reasons. It will be well deserved if it happens.

And every Guardian luvvie will be wondering why.

Cynical me reckons it was probably a stage managed “get his name in the news again” stunt.

On the other hand I would’ve paid money to have been that volunteer who got to tell him that without proper ID he’d wouldn’t be able to vote, y’know, because of his own legislation.

The result: A massive majority for Labour

A nice, comfortable bit of reading for the little fella

A little niche, but at our age do what works for you

It’s entirely possible with the huge problems Labour face of they win the GE. It won’t be turned around in 5 years. I just hope that there is enough positive momentum for voters to keep the faith.

This is why Labour need to be offering a big sweeping “generational” vision for the country and not just offering being a bit less shit for 5 years.

30p Lee on R4 now is precious…

Lee Anderson not able to contain his inner 8 year old in that R4 interview.

Assuming Tories vote numbers dropping through the floor. I’m not as comfortable with celebrations as some. There will be a lot of Tories who haven’t voted and will jackboot down the road at a general election because they don’t want a repeat. They will go from not voting because of some irksome reasons to voting to stop a Tories loss.
Hopefully still lose massively but they’ll be galvanized into action.

So This pretty much maps with nationwide polls (+ a labour boost coz Benton was a tool), reform did well but only just beating the old ukip vote

Blackpool South By-Election Result:

? LAB: 58.9% (+20.6)
? CON: 17.5% (-32.1)
➡️ RFM: 16.9% (+10.7)
? LDM: 2.1% (-1.0)
? GRN: 2.0% (+0.3)
? IND: 0.9% (New)
?‍?‍?‍? ADF: 0.8% (New)
? MRLP: 0.7% (New)
✉️ NONPOL: 0.2% (New)

Labour GAIN from Conservative.
Changes w/ GE2019.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) May 3, 2024

This is why Labour need to be offering a big sweeping “generational” vision for the country and not just offering being a bit less shit for 5 years.

Indeed, but some honesty will be needed they’re not going to undo a decade and a half of Tory terrorism in a single parliament. Their first term will be tough and I wouldn’t expect seismic changes immediately.

I do also think people should just temper their GE expectations a little too, these are local elections only, where loyal Tory voters might register their displeasure with a protest vote for a Reform councillor but a fair proportion of those headbangers will stay blue for a GE recognising the impact to their gang if they fully abandon them.

There might be Reform MP’s after the next GE, the Tories should be much diminished, but let’s not take anything for granted…

There will be a lot of Tories who haven’t voted and will jackboot down the road at a general election because they don’t want a repeat. They will go from not voting because of some irksome reasons to voting to stop a Tories loss.

I was thinking the same. A lot of Reform votes may jump back to Tory for the same reason too

I was thinking the same. A lot of Reform votes may jump back to Tory for the same reason too

And these are the people Labour are running scared of who must be appeased at all costs.

What a time to be alive.