[Youngian]

Even if you support the FPTP constituency system, its not designed for three and four way fights. Labour may still come third or second if there was a secondary vote system but it would have been useful to see where their votes were redistributed. Probably the same as the EURef split: 70 percent to Greens and 30 percent to Reform.

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh god that arsehole Polanski is going to be unbearable.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Tories came third in the Eastleigh by election behind the Lib Dems and UKIP and won the 2015 Election. So it does happen when you’ve got an insurgent party. There are two insurgents here. Can they keep it up?

Democracy Volunteers have raised concerns about family voting. I’d never heard of them but they are funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I think we’re going to hear a lot more about this.

Vote share of Reform is not particularly good, 28.7% on a 47.6% turnout. The constituency is about average for them. Looks like Stop Reform is very strong, thankfully.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Even if you support the FPTP constituency system, its not designed for three and four way fights. Labour may still come third or second if there was a secondary vote system but it would have been useful to see where their votes were redistributed. Probably the same as the EURef split: 70 percent to Greens and 30 percent to Reform.

We’re stuck with FPTP. The optimistic view is that Stop Reform keeps them down to a smaller number of seats than they’d have got under PR.

[Youngian]

Alternative vote is still a FPTP system. Its just means you don't have to second guess your second choice as your first choice. As Donald Rumsfeld may have said.

Ho ho

[Tubby Isaacs]

“Improving” Kemi Badenoch got 1.9%. Labour actually got less in Chesham and Amersham in 2021, where tactical voting was similarly clear for their voters.

The trouble for Kemi is that she’s not that much better placed in her Blue Wall seats. Farage will run and get a decent score in most of them, and everyone else piles in behind the Lib Dem. Bad though things are for Labour, they are the Government, so they can do stuff. What can Kemi do? Spend another 3 years apologising for the “Boriswave” “which by the way, I never supported, it wasn’t me”?

[Bones McCoy]

Very poor by Labour…

Though at least Goodwin didn’t win that kind of person needs locking up not being given a seat in parliament.

His response to not winning bigly:

Reform’s candidate, Matthew Goodwin, claimed the result represented “the emergence of a dangerous sectarianism in British politics”.

“What you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate the constituency.”

Has anybody noticed he and Jenrick are looking more and more alike.
Not just the old Himmler haircut, but the practiced gurning whenever anybody else is permitted to speak.


I'm saddened that people like Goodwin used to rock up with a gaggle of boot boys and some tatty leaflets and lose their deposit.
Are the public more gullible.
Does their slick marketing work.
Or are the two main parties just so dreadful that the only way is populism.

[Bones McCoy]

Farage has chipped in with a racist conspiracy about family voting.
John Curtice reckons it’s the worst Conservative Party performance in a by-election ever. A barely noticed fun factoid.

I skipped around the BBC and papers.
All bar one are doing a stream of consciousness report based on reactions.
Nicely curated reactions with their favoured people to the fore.
Old Mason at the Beeb leads on "Starmer's finished" - sames as he does every day Pinky.

The stream of consciousness avoids actually reporting the numbers.
Which would embarass the Conservatives, and show that 24,234 non reform votes opposed Goodwin's 10,578.
Or dwelling on Reform throwing the kitchen sink at the election - including Ethel Zinoviev's open letter.

A great day for the Wokes and Islamists
A poor day for jug-eared grifters.

I hope Labour do something about their dreadful comms.

[Bones McCoy]

Sincere apologies for the link, but is Hannah Spencer all she claims to be?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... folio.html

Read a claim her sister is Lambeth Labour councillor Rebecca Spencer and another sister and mum have run as Green candidates.* So the ingénue dog loving plumber may well be a construct from casting central. But so what? A media gullible enough to give Farage and Johnson a free run as anti-establishment cheeky chappy ordinary blokes deserves to be played.
* Which is a more interesting take than the Mail story: Plumber has a lucrative side hustle flipping property.

Now she's an MP she can flip property without any suspicion of side-hustling.

[mattomac]

It’s beyond there dreadful comms mind. Announce something good it’s watered down, announce something something bad we get weeks of special interest groups.

Announce improvements and they don’t get a peep.

[Youngian]

Old Mason at the Beeb leads on "Starmer's finished" - sames as he does every day

Is he touting Polanski as the next PM with a landslide like he would be Farage if Reform won? Thought not.

[Bones McCoy]

Awww! Look at his little face!

[Bones McCoy]

Scraped from Bluesky - so you don't have to go here.

"Palest woman in Manchester wins. Proof of great replacement." - Matthew BadLose

[Bones McCoy]

Can any of you photoshop wizards knock up a modified popular Meme.

Goodwin Screaming, Farage holding him back and Spencer as the calm grinning white cat.