[Tubby Isaacs]

Loads in the West Midlands, for starters. I'm relatively optimistic that Labour can get a lot of anti-Farage tactical votes, but it will be a very good region for Reform.

[The Weeping Angel]

I suppose I'll end up with a Reform goon as well.

[The Weeping Angel]

Outflanking Reform latest.

The Government did sound like it wasn't keen on it, but it didn't actually rule it out. Fairly standard negotiation tactics.

Edwin's probably already working on it.

[Youngian]

I'm relatively optimistic that Labour can get a lot of anti-Farage tactical votes, but it will be a very good region for Reform.

I wonder if the 'surprise' Labour victory (media too busy creaming themselves over Farage to notice the ground game) in the Hamilton by-election was driven by people spooked a Reform MP nutter gets in like Runcorn.
I would still bet the LDs will be the main beneficiaries of the increasingly oddball FPTP arithmetic at the next GE.
We now have Corbyn and Farage supporters who don't understand why maximizing voting share won't produce a win. But are too dim to get it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Could have got some Labour votes out on that basis, but not many Lib Dems to squeeze and you’d expect Scottish Greens to go SNP. In lots of England, there’s more for Labour to work with.

The vote shares might suggest some SNP-Reform crossover. There was certainly some Brexit-SNP crossover, but I’d be surprised if that was sustained.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A load more money for apprenticeships, which will get framed by some as "Blue Labour" or "facing up to the challenge of Reform" when it's the sort of thing that very many people have said should have happened since `Farage was in short trousers. I think it's sensible supply side stuff.

Hope it registers in Tipton and helps Antonia, but it probably won't because "Reform would have kept the factories open" or whatever. People say you can't "compete with Reform on immigration", but can you compete with them on anything?

[Andy McDandy]

Today is Windrush day, and I've just seen comments on Facebook saying that it was all a Labour plot to drive down wages and destroy the factories when we could have been building a high tech economy like Germany and Japan, and we'd all be millionaires by now and no blacks.

Racism has always been short on logic, but it is enthusiastically embracing insanity now.

[Youngian]

If only leading politicians over 60 years ago embraced the white heat of technology.

[davidjay]

A load more money for apprenticeships, which will get framed by some as "Blue Labour" or "facing up to the challenge of Reform" when it's the sort of thing that very many people have said should have happened since `Farage was in short trousers. I think it's sensible supply side stuff.

Hope it registers in Tipton and helps Antonia, but it probably won't because "Reform would have kept the factories open" or whatever. People say you can't "compete with Reform on immigration", but can you compete with them on anything?

I can see Reform doing well in Tipton & Wednesbury. Its old incarnation as West Bromwich West was always solid but not overwhelmingly Labour except for 2019 but the fash in their various incarnations have always had a presence; the BNP and UKIP both won council seats there.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, it's one of those areas, like Essex-East London, Lancashire and South Yorkshire, with a more active fash tradition than most places.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour scraps £950m EV rapid charging fund first announced by Conservatives

£400m to be set aside for on-street charging points instead of motorways after RCF was mired in delays

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... servatives

Headline is classic "Labour worse than the Tories, man". But the subheading in fairness makes clear why they cancelled it. And as ever, if there's an item in a future budget with no funding, does it meaningfully exist at all?

The argument is made in the article by Quentin Wilson and others that the whole amount could have been redirected to charging projects. But I'm not sure about that logic. You have to look across the whole of government where you need to spend most urgently, and there are plenty of other candidates. Is redirecting to other charging projects the best? Who's to say eg the training money announced today isn't a better use of money?

On street charging points do make a certain amount of sense as priority. One of the big arguments against EVs that people use (in good faith) is that not everyone has a driveway. If people get a sense of on street charging happening, then you can persuade a lot more people about EVs.

[RedSparrows]

A load more money for apprenticeships, which will get framed by some as "Blue Labour" or "facing up to the challenge of Reform" when it's the sort of thing that very many people have said should have happened since `Farage was in short trousers. I think it's sensible supply side stuff.

Hope it registers in Tipton and helps Antonia, but it probably won't because "Reform would have kept the factories open" or whatever. People say you can't "compete with Reform on immigration", but can you compete with them on anything?

An excellent point. They're in the excellent position of being able to offer ???? to 'vague sense of angst/cynicism/despair/frustration' - pick your poison.

William Davies in the most recent LRB writes of 'Faragist TikTok' - a world where there's literally thousands of videos of people saying 'don't you just... you know... god... you know... so shit isn't it... god'.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Populists can also offer bullshit optimism as well. See Bozo, leveling up Grimsby with no extra contribution from Surrey, all paid for by breaking the Brexit deadlock.

[davidjay]

Yeah, it's one of those areas, like Essex-East London, Lancashire and South Yorkshire, with a more active fash tradition than most places.

It's an ideal breeding ground for them. Overwhelmingly working-class, low aspirational, post-industrial, traditionally low mobility, suspicious of anything different, always ready to find a scapegoat. You couldn't find a better audience for populism