https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-68609729

With 100 councils declared, Starmer may be high-fiving himself, Sunak may be taking comfort in knowing tories can still win if they distance themselves from the nasty party and their policies. but in terms of seats gained it doesn't look that great for Labour, though nowhere near as dire as it is for tory scum -

Green : 159, +66 (+70%)
Independent : +218, +87 (+66%)
Resident : 48, +11 (+29%)
LibDem : 487, +94 (+23%)
Labour : 1,019, +169 (+19%)
Conservative : 463, -433 (-49%)

In terms of upstarts, Galloway's Commies did twice as well as Farage's Fascists.

It's funny that Labour are being punished for being too far right, while tory scum are being punished for not being far right enough.

In terms of councils gained. Labour are doing better, tory scum did even worse, have completely lost the plot -

Labour : 48, +8 (+20%)
Liberal Democrat : 11, +1 (+10%)
Conservative : 5, -8 (-62%)

Of course, if we had democracy. rather than the corrupt first past the post system we have; things would look a whole lot different.

That's funny too. Because those who would have gained the most from having democracy were the ones most adamant we shouldn't have it, even voting against their party leaders who said they should demand it.

The ones who most fear a Starmer and Labour government are the ones who have gifted them a potential landslide.

That's not funny; that's hilarious.

I don't like the look of any of them!

There's quite a lot of Green / LD voters - are they going to stay that way
or change their vote to be more tactical later?

Things were simpler in the before time when Farage was campaigning for an
EU referendum!

On 04 May 2024 15:08:23 GMT
TWP <ngspammersad@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't like the look of any of them!
>
> There's quite a lot of Green / LD voters - are they going to stay
> that way or change their vote to be more tactical later?

That is the question and I fall into that category.

> Things were simpler in the before time when Farage was campaigning
> for an EU referendum!

It was much simpler when Labour were socialist and tories weren't fascists and racists.

I am not going to vote tory, even more so not going to vote Reform or UKIP, nor CPA, the Christian mob we seem to have a lot of around here. So it's whatever is best to ensure none of those win

Though I can support the environmental concerns of Greens I am not too comfortable with their politics, their zealotry.

Labour would be my preference if it were a socialist party. I still believe Corbyn would have been a great PM, but he got cancelled by the Tory-Lite Blairites who jumped aboard the "anti-Semitic Jew-hating Hitlerite" bandwagon driven by the Daily Mail and Express before it became as fashionable as it is now.

If only John McDonald had stayed in the game. But we got spineless Starmer.

So Lib-Dem is who I would vote for ... except ... will that split the vote and allow the tory scum back in ?

Labour do look best placed for ending the rule of the scum so it has to be Labour even if through gritted teeth.

But where I live it's challenging. The local police election saw a tory win with 90,000, Lib-Dem second placed with 70,000 and Labour just a tad behind, Greens on 30,000.

It's almost twice as many against tory as for. They could easily be ousted but only whith tactical voting. So who knows; Lib-Dems or Labour ?

The parties themselves seem determined to have a split vote, and they'll probably get it.

This is why I am not so confident tories will lose. But hopefully Reform will ensure they do.

The really big question is will Tice and Farage pull their candidates like last time to ensure a tory victory ?

I think the next election is the most unpredictable we have ever had.

On Sat, 4 May 2024 21:30:15 +0100
The Happy Hippy <the.happy.hippy.nntp@ntlworld.invalid> wrote:

> Labour do look best placed for ending the rule of the scum so it has
> to be Labour even if through gritted teeth.

For my county council ...

Labour : 19, +6 (+46%)
Lib-Dem : 15, +4 (+36%)
Tory : 7, -8 (-54%)

So looks like Labour are the horse to back, but in terms of parliamentary constituency it seems the Lib-Dems may hold the advantage.

But if tories are doing so badly it might not matter who one votes for.

I'll have to do some digging to see if I can determine how many votes Reform are taking from tories. If it's 20% to 30% that will be great. Not enough to secure victory, enough to ensure tories won't win either.

On Sat, 4 May 2024 22:03:05 +0100
The Happy Hippy <the.happy.hippy.nntp@ntlworld.invalid> wrote:

> I'll have to do some digging to see if I can determine how many votes
> Reform are taking from tories. If it's 20% to 30% that will be great.
> Not enough to secure victory, enough to ensure tories won't win
> either.

Looking at Hartlepool, which was strongly "get it done" after the Brexit referendum, with a huge swing to tories in 2021, the votes across all wards this time round were -

Labour : 9,274 - 54%
Tories : 4,911 - 28%
Reform : 2,847 - 17%

While the tories wouldn't have won if Reform hadn't split the vote, that they did was highly damaging, taking 37% of what would have been the tory vote had they not.

That is higher than I expected but it shouldn't be any surprise given 20% of Britain is racist and supports the far right, as do over a third of tory voters. It merely confirms what we have known for years, decades.

It does show the dire straights Sunak is in, trying to hold on to the party's almost 40% of votes from racist scum, while losing the support of others in doing so.

He lost 37% to the racists and fascists, and I calculate it's over 15% lost through pandering to those racists and fascists and swinging towards the far right.

I don't see any way out for the tories. Truss, Braverman, the usual suspects, believe the solution is to move further right but that will just lose them the votes of decent people and they won't reclaim all votes lost to Reform.

This is the party's worse nightmare; not being able to keep racists and fascist within their "broad church"; they have always been dependent on that.

They dodged that bullet in 2019 when Farage betrayed UKIP and Brexit voters by standing down his candidates, ensuring a tory landslide.

It's not guaranteed that Tice will buy that this time; he really has bought into the delusion that he can crush Labour as well as the tory party.

His 17% in Hartlepool suggests it's just like every far right gain across Europe; causes significant damage to some establishment party or other but is never enough to secure significant victory. Except in Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Spain, where they have a long tradition of fascism anyway.

Even if they secure seats in some democracies that's almost impossible with our first past the post system which, Reform voters now, demanded to keep, and even where they do gain seats, 80% are still against them.

On Sun, 5 May 2024 07:23:16 +0100
The Happy Hippy <the.happy.hippy.nntp@ntlworld.invalid> wrote:

> While the tories wouldn't have won if Reform hadn't split the vote,
> that they did was highly damaging, taking 37% of what would have been
> the tory vote had they not.

At first glance it doesn't appear Reform did very well at all in the London Mayoral
race, either in securing votes or taking votes from the tories.

But they still managed to remove over 18% of the tory vote.

Again, reflecting that ever present 20% who are racist and fascist and align with the far right -

Labour : 951,056 - 38%
Tories : 648,269 - 26%
Green : 286,746 - 12%
Lib-Dem : 215,682 - 9%
Reform : 145,409 - 6%