UK Election!

Morning all! And what a morning?! I’ve managed 3 whole hours sleep. Cracking that second bottle of red open wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. I need caffeine! 🙂

I see our resident whingers and doom-mongers are expressing their dissatisfaction and disappointment already, with their usual bottomless and utterly joyless well of spirit-crushing pessimism ? 

Ian Dunt, as on so many occasions, suns things up for me

“Good morning. The dawn has broken. It’s grey. It’s raining. And it’s a beautiful day.

Turn on the TV and they’ll likely try to talk you down. That’s been the tone all night. They’re doing it as I write this: a manifesto of sullen despair. They say Keir Starmer won’t get a honeymoon. The electorate didn’t vote for Labour, they just voted against the Tories. The vote share is poor. Small parties and independents tore chunks out of the party over Gaza. Farage and his team of populists are now established in the Commons. And even where they’re not, they’re the main challenger against Labour in many seats.

All of this is true. But here’s the thing: Labour is in power. Keir Starmer is prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And that creates its own dynamics, which will make all the worrisome talk this morning fade into nothing”.

Nice to wake up and see that the Tories have slid back into the middle of the polling predictions for seat numbers. At one point it looked like they would be outperforming the polls, which would be disappointing.

Just couldn’t stay awake for the Truss moment, but that’s the only one I missed.

fancy losing 250 seats !

Those Labour numbers have put me right of FPtP

“Left wing parties combined have 500 seats…..i think we all will start to need for looking for a job in the public sector.”

These left wing parties – are they in the room with us now?

Just woken up again. Gutted that I missed Truss lose…..and 4 Greens, this is amazing!! Sad to hear of the abuse of Jess Philips, that independent was a right vile wrong un.

Soooo has he booked his plane tickets to sunny socal or will he stay to help the country as a credible opponent to labour.
You know the country with more food banks than McDonald’s in part to him running the place into the ground.
I could stick a bet on I suppose like one of the newly elected lords did.

Bunch of grifting poisonous shit peddling millionaires

Are we allowed to mention the SNP?

Yep , agreed. Reform down here got something like 9000 votes , against the Tories winner with 12,800. Different weather on the day and less feel good factors could have seen it closer than that.

There was a 60-odd % overall turnout. Reform overall are going to get about 13-14% of the vote. That’s 8% of the overall electorate. I wondered previously (early hours of this morning) so probably lost in the pages ago history, but Reform is to some extent a protest vote and if you’re motivated to protest you’re *probably* motivated to go out and register that protest.

No matter how hard they tried to caution against it, I wonder how many voters, particularly for the two main parties, didn’t go and vote because it was a foregone conclusion / no point / disillusioned. 40% of people didn’t vote, I wonder what proportion if forced to vote would have voted for the main parties (if true to their opinions, not also voting for another option as protest of being forced to vote)

If there was a 100% turnout, I’d be incredibly surprised if Reform still got 13-14% of that and would predict they’d still be somewhere around the 8-10%  That’s still too high for me given what they stand for but I respect democracy and the right for people to hold and vote for those opinions. And I also respect that part of democracy is engaging voters to go and register their views, not assume it was a foregone conclusion or just be too pissed off to bother.

might have already been mentioned, but it looks like the lib-dems almost have an equal share-of-vote to share-of-seats ratio (its bloody close). Will this mean they stop fighting for proportional representation?

“Great to see Corbyn re-elected.
Binners will be pleased”

I couldn’t give a flying **** about Magic Grandad

This sums up my mood at the moment…

To coin a phrase from a popular sitcom: We’re doomed.

A popular phrase from about 50 years ago. Much like the rest of your opinions about the labour party.

I couldn’t give a flying **** about Magic Grandad

Jebus Binners,  don’t start that argumenathon off again!

Can’t be many that right wing cabal, the ERG group, left now.

Rishi saying goodbye on the front steps now.

Shame its not raining….

Sweep stake for when Rishi steps down? Can I have this Sunday? I’m assuming his wife and kids are already on the private jet to Cali, with Rishi to follow .

Laughing at the fact his wife is equipped with an umbrella this time…

Off to Heathrow

His bags will already be there

Locally we were victims of the Boundaries Commission moving us from Dartford (now Labour) to Sevenoaks (never likely to be anything other than Tory).  Some folk were so disconnected from politics that I had to explain to a couple that Laura Trott MP was not the cyclist!

Anyway, with the nature of the Labour win, what are the odds that electoral reform will even be considered going forward?  FPTP sometimes gives the voting public what they want but it seems like every election there’s this whole “yeah but look at the number of actual votes they got” argument.

Will we ever see proportional representation?

@binners that Ian Dunt quote is a good summary. I believe Starmer is a basically good bloke with a moral compass, I trust my instincts on people. I think he’s been careful on many issues as he’s tactically smart, sees the long game plan and trying to steer a fine line (the media, avoiding distraction etc) hasn’t always presented him/Labour well. I hope what we see in the near future shows his true ability and aims. I say ‘I hope’ rather than anything more confident because politics is like road racing to me, it has a track record that creates cynicism in anyone who’s either pragmatic or not a blind optimist. For me Starmer is like Pogacar and Vingegaard’s era – there is hope that things can be better, but only time and some hindsight will convince.

Who is going to be the last seat to declare? The BBC show 2 seats left, but I can only spot one “grey” constituency on the map. Is there some odd one that always declares later than all the rest?

By the way, I remember a time when NI constituencies didn’t start counting until the next morning, so was pleased to see they have all declared.

Red white and blue dress it only needed a few stars. They are off like donkey Kong before September

I’m assuming his wife and kids are already on the private jet to Cali, with Rishi to follow .

But he is still an MP and so should be required to attend the House of Commons to represent his constituents. Perhaps we should have a sweep stake on who turns up more Rishi or Nigel

Hope Trump and his disciples are getting some tips on how to leave gracefully.

Apparently the Secretary of State for Drivers, Mark Harper, for the boot too. Hopefully Lou Haigh will be better, especially as Cycling UK got to her after some previous daft comments…

@roverpig Argyll and Basildon

It’s OK, I’ve found it now 🙂

“Off to Heathrow

His bags will already be there”

He’ll be gutted he didnt lose his seat, now hes got to quit and call a by-election

I live in Kent.

I now live in a part of Kent with a Labour council AND a Labour MP.

Neither of those statements were the case at the start of last year.

And **** me, a Labour PM, a Labour PM.

Politically, I now live in nirvana.

I voted for better and I’ve already got that on day 1.

Might be a drama in the Basildon/Thurrock seat
https://thurrock.nub.news/news/local-news/labour-take-thurrock-but-its-too-close-to-call-in-south-basildon-and-east-thurrock-and-a-recount-will-follow-234229

Initially candidates were told Reform had won by a margin of 127 votes, which prompted Labour to demand a recount and an initial check found botched counting procedures.

No idea if that website is reliable

Will this mean they stop fighting for proportional representation?

The real shocker for me in all of this is that Reform got a higher share of the vote than the Lib. Dems and we’re lucky that they only got 4 seats. With PR (something I’ve previously been in favour of as a Lib. Dem supporter) they’d presumably have had a bigger representation than the Liberals.

Reform vote share across the places they stood, none in NI, is interesting. Highest in Wales agt 17%, lowest in Scotland at 7%

I went to bed at midnight, very glum based on the exit poll and 13 reform projections.

I woke at 4 and have been up to see all the Portillo’s, the change in projections and final tally. It was quite a journey. Truss going was an unexpected highlight for me.

I believe I witnessed first hand the single greatest outbreak of joy since the end of the second world war

@piemonster

The same detail on the recount was on the guardian live feed too

Reform is currently encouraging a section of the population which either otherwise wouldn’t normally vote or would cast a protest vote.

As ever, their leaflet drops (just like Brexit) had a very clear, easy to understand message of what they want, but like a bag of crisps, there’s not much to digest and it’s certainly not built to sustain you.

Terrible night for the SNP, but Douglas Ross lost, which is quite amusing 🙂

Yes but the existence of PR would completely change the party landscape so you can’t just point at one result like that.

FPTP forces loosely aligned people to group together into bigger parties, which is why we’ve had to main parties for so long. The Tories were actually made up of a wide spectrum from near centrist business focused people to right wing nutters. This causes problems for representation because right wing nutters end up voting for centrists and vice versa. So no-one even knows what the electorate’s views even are, for sure. And it means parties have to compromise internally and invisibly, with the result that everyone’s disappointed at some point.

If we had PR we’d have way more parties. If we had an alternative vote or second choice system a large number of people would put Green down, which would force other parties to chase Green votes with environmental policies and we’d probably have much stronger environmental protections as a result. It would have a huge effect on the country as a whole.

It was unsurprising how graceless they all were in defeat.

My mate Paul is a local radio reporter. He was at the count for Jake Berry. He tried to get a word with him on air, but he was straight out the back door and no doubt straight back to his actual home 100 miles away in Wales.

So like so many of them last night he didn’t hang around to thank his team or the volunteers who will have been out on the streets campaigning for him in the rain for months

Graceless, arrogant and charmless ****s, the lot of them

Good riddance!

^10 years of uselessness gone. Saved me from moving out of Rossendale in frustration.

Binners

It was unsurprising how graceless they all were in defeat.

Rees-Mogg was actually pretty gracious. I hate to give him credit for anything, but he was. Congratulated his opponent and SKS and praised our democracy. Applause.

https://news.sky.com/video/jacob-rees-mogg-bids-farewell-with-chitty-chitty-bang-bang-quote-13170822

“private jet to Cali”

TBF, Cali is a more likely destination for Truss, Kwarteng and Gove. Connecting flight from Bogota.

?

“Reform is currently encouraging a section of the population which either otherwise wouldn’t normally vote or would cast a protest vote.”

Really? I don’t think so.

In seat after seat most of the Tory % reduction was mirrored in a Reform increase. Looks very much like Reform’s vote is primarily right wing Tories unhappy with the party after Johnson and Truss got kicked out.