Rishi! Sunak!

crazy-legs
Full Member

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

Cynical me thinks it’s search engine poisoning. “Boris Johnston doesn’t follow rules he made for everyone else” is now a “whoops aren’t I silly” story rather than an “I partied while you were restricting the numbers at your mum’s funeral” story.

Could Rishi rush through PR to stave off an electoral catastrophe ?

Can’t imagine his headbangers would let him, as it would allow the tories to filter out nutters if they chose

Catching up with the various car crash radio interview in the car at the moment.

A nasty former Tory advisor was delightfully honest with Adrian Chiles when he said the only age group the Tories had a lead in was the over 70s, and if they wait 6 months for an election 0.5% of their support will have died.

Could Rishi rush through PR to stave off an electoral catastrophe ?

I think from a Tory perspective they’ve set the president that PR is a referendum issue. We’ve all forgotten about it now – but thats how Dave started his strategy of using referendums to make inconvenient things like PR, Scottish Independence and Brexit go away (with varying levels of success). With PR – he didn’t want it but it was a Liberal party demand as part of their coalition – so he rushed through a referendum vote on a schedule that didn’t really allow for the topic to be discussed

Elsewhere in the UK PR based voting systems seem to have been established quite readily, uncontrovercially, without having to ‘go to the country’ to make that happen but at Westminster level ‘the public have spoken’ and rejected PR which makes it awkward to try and establish it without again having a vote.

That wouldn’t stop the tories from doing it if they thought it was to their advantage.

And it would probably only be in their advantage in the coming general election, long term it would be a big disadvantage for them, so it would be a case of the current crop of grifters hanging onto some seats (it wouldn’t be enough to get them anywhere near a win) against party performance in subsequent elections. Currently they might just go for it, they seem completely oblivious to anything that might happen the next day never mind a few years down the road.

Would a president set a precedent?

With PR – he didn’t want it but it was a Liberal party demand as part of their coalition – so he rushed through a referendum vote on a schedule that didn’t really allow for the topic to be discussed

And then it wasnt even PR but the crap AV.

I think his success at rigging that one and then scraping through the Scottish one gave him delusions about his abilities to persuade the public. Thinking it was all him vs the fact the right wing rags happened to be on the same side during both of those.

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

Folk don’t remember last year, it’s the media that reminds them – how many folk do you hear blame Labour for the”70’s” when both Labour & the Tories pretty much shared running the country across the decade?

And notice how the ‘media’ never reminds folk of the early 90’s?  Utter 5h1tshow and all under the Tories.

It still amazes me that ordinary low-paid folk are still voting Tory – just how bad do you want your life to be?

Tory Ben Houchen retains Tees Valley Mayorship, after campaigning that supporters should base their choice of mayor on local issues, and ignore Westminster politics.

Andrea Loathsome response – a “testament to the Conservative government”

Wired to the ******* moon, they are.

They seem to be calling the East Mids mayor for Labour, which is quite an achievement considering I don’t think I knew her name before I put an X next to it.

Folk don’t remember last year, it’s the media that reminds them

Which is why  I don’t understand why voters still appear to be punishing the LibDems for what they decided to do 14 years ago.

The media doesn’t really remind voters about the LibDem’s fateful decision to form a coalition with the Tories in 2010, but nevertheless the LibDems are lucky to get half of the support they received in the 2010 general election, pre cosying-up with the Tories.

Tory Ben Houchen retains Tees Valley Mayorship, after campaigning that supporters should base their choice of mayor on local issues, and ignore Westminster politics.

Did those “local issues” include alleged corruption?

https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption/2024/02/16/the-unsolved-mystery-of-corruption-in-teesside/

Could YOU vote for someone involved in this?

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-tees-valley-rishi-sunak-labour-conservative-b1155541.html

Lord Houchen was the only candidate on stage not to wear a party rosette at the Tees Valley count, saying later he “forgot”.

Yeah right.

It still amazes me that ordinary low-paid folk are still voting Tory – just how bad do you want your life to be?

marginally better than the person you perceive to source of your woes.

ie immigrants coming over here stealing my job/doctors appt/house etc etc.

punching downwards, greatest trick the tories ever pulled.

PR would be a disaster for the tories, they know perfectly well that they only get to form governments because of FPTP, if you assume the same spread of votes then every government in my lifetime would have been a centre-left coalition or minority government with the tories as the biggest opposition. They have a political system that magically turns 43% into a crushing landslide majority and 40% into an electoral disaster and lets them pretend that we’re a naturally conservative country. They’d be utterly insane to change it. And for what? So they can lose slightly less massively?

But of course every recent tory leader would still do it instantly if they thought it would stop them being murdered by their own cabinet for a couple of weeks.

MCTD – Labour campaigned widely and hard for Claire Ward right across the E Mids so I’m a little surprised you didn’t know her name.

The Tories do seem to be getting a drubbing, appear to have lost more seats than they’ve won so far, and the lib dems seem to just behind in terms of seats one.

Interestingly Labour haven’t gained as many seats as the Tories have lost, probably because a disproportionate number of the councils that have declared so far were Labour to begin with so not as much opportunity to pick up votes.

Reform still on zero, Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

Has Lil Rishi booked his one way ticket to California yet?

Kier Starmer should go to number 10 andwave behind a lecture this afternoon.

@stumpyjon

Interestingly Labour haven’t gained as many seats as the Tories have lost

Labour have done relatively poorly in seats with higher percentage of Muslim voters. Ex Labour independents have taken those votes.

In one council the Torys held control by one councillor by by unsuspending a councillor that was suspended whilst they investigate a sex offences allegation…

They really have no morals at all. Zero.

They have to go, at all costs.

Well done Devon & Cornwall electing a Tory PCC, again.

squeaky bum time for Kahn

Multiple Labour and Tory sources say they expect the London mayoral election to be v close. "The polls were completely wrong," says one. Labour saying they think they've won, but not with a lot of confidence.

— Kiran Stacey (@kiranstacey) May 3, 2024

switching to fptp could really have affected things (taking ernies voting as an example)

when is result expected ^

Absolutely delighted with the North Yorkshire Mayor result. Labour Mayor for us lot!

Mind you, if he does win a third term, especially in such an utterly shameful context of absolutely brutal online Islamophobia it’s pretty impressive.

Has any mayor won 3 terms in London, I don’t think they have?

I’m also seeing a lot of pseudo MAGA type chatter that khan somehow rigged the vote via the postal vote etc which is basically just preparing the ground for a Hall defeat.

I’ve learnt a lot about her over the last few days from people reposting her past comments and tweets etc. She’s a really nasty piece of work.

I can understand that many aren’t kean on ULEZ but wow, she really isn’t fit to be mayor.

theotherjonv
Full Member
when is result expected ^

Tomorrow I think?

when is result expected ^

tomorrow afternoon, or evening if its really close!

One thing’s for sure, the runup to the GE is going to be absolutely brutal with the Tories throwing as much shit as they can to avoid total oblivion, at any cost.

I’ll be staying away from social media that’s for sure. I don’t know how khan puts up with the sheer quantity of abuse and death threats he gets online. It’s hell digitised.

The only thing that gave me hope online is that any pro Tory propaganda/lies/smears get jumped on immediately by hundreds of people pointing out the lies and hypocrisy.

Labour win E Mids mayoralty by c70k votes.

Ben Bradley, the tory candidate, looked like he was about to cry when the results were announced.

Yep, tanks on Sunak’s lawn!

Absolutely delighted with the North Yorkshire Mayor result. Labour Mayor for us lot!

@Jordan and Rishi too eh? That covers his constituency too, doesn’t it?

Well, going by the current numbers and the councils left to declare, the Tories really are going to lose something near there worst case scenario of 500 councillors. A full 50% of their current number. Ouch.

Never understood the grief Khan gets – he’s just a mayor not the government. Buck stops with them.

Apparently Sunak believes ‘voters will stick with us” at the general election. Well some of the fruit loops and headbangers might (a good chunk are off to reform) but I think it’s pretty clear no one else will. I don’t know how he can say things like that with straight face.

I think a couple of hundred deluded, misinformed voters, will stick with Sunak – but not enough to keep their deposit.

It would be a remarkable upset if Khan lost in London (and very bad news). It is already remarkable how many people outside London are supposedly upset about ULEZ and crime in London, despite Londoners being much more concerned with affordable housing.

It doesn’t help that the Tory candidate is an extremist. Goldsmith, Bailey and Johnson were totally unsuitable – but Hall is deranged and holds views that the Tories have never espoused before.

Never understood the grief Khan gets – he’s just a mayor not the government. Buck stops with them.

London Mayor has a large budget and a lot more power than the average mayor. It runs much of mass transit, city planning, policing and roads. Greater London Authority is probably closer to the Welsh Parliament than just a town council. Although I support it, ULEZ has caused some people to sell their cars (including me!), and crime is a genuine problem. Those aren’t totally divorced from UK central govt, but I can see why some people in London would criticise him…

…but that’s not the motivation of many of the non-Londoners online criticising Khan…

Caher
Full Member
Never understood the grief Khan gets – he’s just a mayor not the government. Buck stops with them.

It’s pretty clear online, there is some genuine anger over ULEZ but it’s well and truly tangled up with him being Islamic. The Tories are happy to stir that particular pot too.

Khan personal approval ratings are not good, and yet London has the biggest concentration of Labour support anywhere in the UK.

The last London mayoral was much closer than it should have been. Shaun Bailey was a shite candidate, at least as bad as Susan Hall imo, and yet Khan only beat him by less than five percent in the first round.

Obviously I can’t be sure but I am fairly confident that he has won. I would have voted for him if the last pre-election poll had only given him just a single digit lead, but even allowing for shy Tories his lead was comfortable – not allowing for shy Tories his lead was huge.

Whether he wins by ten votes or a hundred thousand makes no difference to his powers as London mayor but hopefully a narrow win will dissuade him from standing again, or maybe give an independent with a radical platform the encouragement to stand.

For the record I voted Green at the last mayoral election with Khan as my second choice. I wish that I had been given the same opportunity again. Although I would much rather not have directly elected mayors.

As a not particularly politically educated Londoner, Khan feels pretty invisible to me.  Sure, we know why Boris was the sociopathic opposite, but I’d struggle to names something Khan has done succesfully amongst all the negative news.

John Curtice has just unveiled BBC's projected national vote share: Labour lead 9 points, same as last year pic.twitter.com/OWY7Oyx8sD

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) May 3, 2024

Just about a majority – territory (in fact some reports saying not quite majority.)