Huge amounts of crying online tonight, volunteers are going around handing out throws at this time of crisis. Pray for them.

Here is the full article:

https://archive.li/2024.05.04-181457/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/local-election-results-suella-braverman-rishi-sunak/

There are some right gems but I think this is probably my favourite:

“But all is not lost. The public are not rushing to vote for Sir Keir, though they feel sorely let down by us.”

There was a by-election on Thursday  which Labour won with a 26.3 percent swing – the third largest margin from the Conservatives to Labour at a by-election since World War II.

A 26.3% swing to Labour isn’t anything to write home about, eh?

*Edited with correct link*

Not much to report about for the Mail on Sunday. 😉

AS certainly needs better taste in men!

Luckily Kuenssberg is here to sooth the Tory woes this morning. Yesterday was actually ok for them in reality.👍

Cool. Cool.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68956828

But the LibDems did about same

They took over a hundred seats off the Conservatives. This is not “about the same”. Taking seats is what matters, not increasing your share of the vote in seats where you can’t win. The Tories have doubled down on FPTP, but it looks like [cross fingers] the public are getting wise to this and are making their votes count to remove power from them.

Luckily Kuenssberg is here to sooth the Tory woes this morning. Yesterday was actually ok for them in reality.👍Cool. Cool. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68956828

Are you reading a different article or something?

So, for now, the Conservative Party seems to have made its choice. To hold on to power for a few more very difficult months with the hope of improving a dire situation, rather than taking a chance to change things that could spiral into an unknown chaos. If the Conservatives ultimately crash to a big defeat, this weekend might come to represent the moment it accepted its fate…

But as the final tallies of winners and losers are finalised, after millions of votes that suggested how unpopular the Tories are right now, Rishi Sunak’s backers believe he is safe from his party. But are the Conservatives safe from the country’s verdict? Certainly not.

^ agree. I don’t see the bias that others ascribe to LK and the BBC – she may be a Tory at heart but the reporting seems reasonably balanced to me. A balance of opinions and only the pro-Tory ones being picked up as evidence?

In isolation “the gap between the Conservatives and Labour comes out at 9%: not, theoretically, an insurmountable gap to close when the general election campaign is miles away and could bend the curves” might lead to the opinion she’s biased, but there’s plenty of counter too.

But the LibDems did about same

.

They took over a hundred seats off the Conservatives. This is not “about the same”.

A deliberately edited quote so that you can take it out of context – well done Kelvin 👏

The full sentence shows context and that it refers to share of the vote:

But the LibDems did about the same – they got 17% in 2021

Yes thanks to the peculiarities of FPTP, which you refer to, the LibDems greatly increased their total amount of seats, but there was no “huge” swing to the LibDems, which was what was being discussed.

Instead of carefully cropping my sentences and deliberately taking my comments out of context how about you putting a figure to this “huge” LibDem swing? Swings are usually measured in percentages, not seat numbers.

And btw Reform UK managed to get just 2 seats on Thursday, do you think that is a fair reflection of the level of support they enjoy? Since you apparently want to use seat numbers rather than percentage share.

Someone has just drawn my attention to the fact that apparently women’s safety is being mortgaged at the altar of mass immigration. I did not know this.

I don’t remember any religious ceremony when I got my mortgage. Except for when they pulled out the Holy Parker Pen of Edessa right at the end.

Braverman is sticking the boot in he needs to “own” the result, or it’s all your **** fault 😉

and Mark Harper thinks these result point to a hung parliament, deluded doesn’t even cut it

public are getting wise to this and are making their votes count to remove power from them.

I think an important thing to factor – and it’s not how political parties like to think – is to a great extent the biggest motivating factor for many voters is ‘Spite’. (In fact the biggest motivating factor in many people’s lives is spite – you just need to be in a traffic jam to witness that).

Parties will lay out their offerings as policies and manifestos, in the hope or belief that voters will sign up for their vision of a future Britain, but to a great extent voters aren’t voting in support parties will do, they are voting in judgement of what the current government has done. Voters care less about who might lead us next – by default it’ll be Labour rather than any other party – than they do about being sure who doesn’t.

Despite what some of the deluded tories think, i have a feeling the election could be even worse than they expect.
Tactical voting has led of an effect when you could vote in other parties.
In the ge i could see there being a huge amount of tactical voting to try and obliterate the tories. I hope anyway

In the ge i could see there being a huge amount of tactical voting to try and obliterate the tories.

🤞🏼

@grahamt1980 There’s a theory that says in London, LD & Green voters voted for Khan, soft Tories voted LD.

I also think that in the local elections, independents do hugely well over local/single issues. Labour no doubt lost vote over Gaza. Will that be the same in the GE?

So Bravermans ‘keep digging’ quote must surely be firing the starting gun on her leadership bid, meanwhile Badanoch starts her appeal to the racist pensioners that make up the membership by going full Uncle Tom

So empire and the slave trade contributed little to Britain’s wealth? Pull the other one, Kemi Badenoch

It looks like the match towards a right wing fantasy world is well underway, fuelled by the Tufton Street mob, which now appears to involve a complete re-writing of history

Just walked past Downing Street, very quiet, not even the whisper of whining on the wind. Lil Rishi must have cried himself to sleep by now.

In fact the biggest motivating factor in many people’s lives is spite – you just need to be in a traffic jam to witness that

Nah I don’t think so – in traffic, a lot of what people do that looks like nastiness is just ignorance, they have no idea what effect it has on people.  The thing that rules most people’s lives is sentiment. or emotion. Sometimes that’s spite.

The thing I’d take from this all, is the lack of impact of the right wing news and media is having. People seem to be fact checking what they hear and I’ll happily take the positives from this. In fact the longer rich sunk stays in, the better. So really happy days 😉

JeZ

The thing I’d take from this all, is the lack of impact of the right wing news and media is having. People seem to be fact checking what they hear and I’ll happily take the positives from this. In fact the longer rich sunk stays in, the better. So really happy days 😉

JeZ

funnily enough braverman has taken her own advice and decided the best course of action is to keep on digging, even daily mail columnists think she’s lost it

This is the Conservative Party's problem in a nutshell. Suella Braverman was the British Home Secretary a few months ago. Who looks like the maniac here. https://t.co/3m5UyPyIJ5

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) May 5, 2024

Currently sitting in a cafe listening to a Home Counties libertarian broadcasting his views from an adjacent table: “I actually have a counter revolutionary perspective…things have to get worse before they get better…I actually want Labour to win…people in this country have forgotten what it’s like to serve under socialist bureaucracy [he is about 24 years old]…the people need a wake up call…London is a different country now…law and order have broken down”. Unfortunately law and order haven’t broken down in London sufficiently that I can squeeze this bottle of chili sauce up his nose and get away with it.

Labour … would open our borders & who would indoctrinated our institutions & schools with PC madness

“by going full Uncle Tom”

I don’t think it’s acceptable for someone who is presumably white, to make such an accusation – loathsome as she may be.

London is a different country now…law and order have broken down”.

Film4 showed London Has Fallen last night.

Maybe they’d also predicted a Hall win or maybe it was a dig at how, yes indeed, law and order is a distant memory as terror stalks the land.

Or it could just be a brainless Gerard Butler action flick and there’s no higher meaning.

I guess we’ll never know.

I don’t think it’s acceptable for someone who is presumably white, to make such an accusation – loathsome as she may be.

Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

‘The term “Uncle Tom” is used as an epithet for an excessively subservient person, particularly when that person perceives his or her own lower-class status based on race. It is similarly used to negatively describe people who betray their own group by participating in its oppression, whether willingly or not.’

I’d say that making a speech spouting far right guff to excuse colonialism and the slave trade pretty much fits the bill. Imagine if a white bloke had made the same speech. It’s also worth bearing in mind that she represents a party where at least one of her Parliamentary colleagues still owns, and profits handsomely from a plantation in ‘the colonies’.

Tory MP from slave-owning family set to gain £3m from sale of former plantation

excessively subservient person

In what way is she excessively subservient?

Anyway, I think there are better ways of describing her negative qualities.

Do we really need to chuck around racial epithets to make our point?

How about ‘useful idiot’?

How about ‘useful idiot’?

Sounds better to me. Not trying to be an arse by the way.

“by going full Uncle Tom”

Not acceptable.

Language like that is hardly likely to attract (or even retain) black voters to the Labour party. Though to be fair, judging by the make up of this forum there’s little chance of someone black actually reading those comments.

Anyhow, binners is just relieved that Starmer is facing Sunak at the next election rather than her, (at least thatt’s how I understand his consistent and hyperbolic vitriol against her.) He knows she would pose a much greater threat to Labour’s chances.

That and he’s got a few quid on Suella to win the Leadership.

On the contrary. I believe that the majority of voters would find her extreme far right views absolutely abhorrent. That combined with her obnoxious general demeanour. She makes Rishi look like Jeremy Corbyn

But if you believe the bookies then she’s been nailed on favourite as next Tory leader for about 12 months now. The membership, mostly male, pale and stale, absolutely love her. Hardly surprising when she’s happy to vocalise what they feel they can’t, because… erm… woke

Not acceptable.

Only if the accusation is not justified I would have thought.

Since one accepted definition is “a black person who is overeager to win the approval of whites” I think it describes Suella Braverman perfectly.

It is clear, to me anyway, that Braverman’s relentless attacks on asylum seekers and migrants from poor third world countries is designed to seek personal approval from white racists both inside her party and among the general public.

IMO it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise. Presumably those who object do so because the term is dependent on her skin colour, but it would be disingenuous to pretend that her skin colour is not a relevant issue – it is.

Massive lesson from history – the Tories only generally win when they’re centre right (yes, I know Thatcher is an exception to this, as is 2019). Tacking further right, as much as Cruella and the membership might want that, is likely to keep them out of power after the GE.

As has been said, they’re losing votes in three directions – Lab, LD and Reform. Move right, more of their prospective voters will go to the LDs and Lab (in all but a very few seats e.g. Hallam it’s one or other vs the Tories, and on the evidence from the LEs people are wise enough to vote tactically), move to the centre and they’ll lose the gammon vote to Reform. They’re stuffed.

The Tories are currently haemorrhaging votes to Reform UK precisely because they have moved to the right on the issue of immigration and asylum seekers.

All they have managed to do is to make the issue mainstream and an acceptable election issue. When racism becomes an acceptable and apparently respectable issue who are you gonna give your vote to? A proper no- nonsense racist party like Reform UK!

The Tories best chance to regain votes is to move back to the centre and help to ostracise and marginalise the racists.

Playing the racists at their own game is a certain loser for the Tories – Reform UK have more than double their support in the last year, most of it has come from former Tory supporters.

I just wish someone would ask Braverman something along the lines of:

“since 2019, the Conservatives have moved further to the right, since then you’ve been hemorrhaging votes. Why do you think that moving right again will win you more votes?”

I do not understand why they think harder right policies will win them an election. All the evidence of late shows it’s being rejected by the British public.

I do not understand why they think harder right policies will win them an election.

Oh it’s obvious – when they said “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, they’ve not (yet) been tough enough.
Since the current abysmal treatment of refugees / asylum seekers is not deterring them, they need to be even more abysmal towards them.
All the layabout benefit claimants have not been convinced to go back to work in spite of one of the most appalling benefit systems going so we need to be even more harsh with them.

They’ve painted themselves into a corner and you can’t row back from that. This is the problem with setting out unworkable policies based on populist slogans. They don’t work, they’re seen not to work and the only way to progress from there is to make them tougher still and announce more populist nonsense about how you’re going to fire immigrants into the sun. That too fails to work so what’s the next step? There isn’t one and suddenly you’re viewed not as being tough and resourceful, you’re viewed as being a total failure.

You can get away with blaming the lack of it working on lefties, ECHR, snowflakes and wokeists for a while but eventually you run out of people to blame. And along the way, you’re losing support from even the gammons who might think “hang on, that’s a bit OTT even for us…” Kind of like the “are we the bad guys?” meme from the Mitchell and Webb Show.