With one important exception, this life cycle is usually briefer for Labour governments, since they face more opposition from the media and powerful economic interests, and more suspicion from voters as a result.
Nowt to do with the fact that they and their policies are shite then…..
Being run by crooks and traitors ( Wilson was both, for instance ) doesn’t help.
Blair managed it for 10 years. Until people started to see through him, that is. Which is another problem that they have.
Whilst true this quote needs a sizable caveat. As Blair demonstrated, just fooling a majority of the voting public is sufficient. In his final General Election 21.6% of the eligible voting population voted Labour.
Future electoral victories are guaranteed to need an even smaller number of people to be fooled.
The ropers aren’t being fooled – they are voting exactly the way they are told to vote by the imams or their family.
80 constituencies with over 10% moslem pop.
30 with over 15%.
11 with over 20%.
Makerfield is 96% white and only 1.2% ethnic according to AI, whereas Denton and Gorton is 36%, so unlikely Hypnotits will get in.
For specific stats like that it’s worth using an old fashioned search engine rather than AI. Unfortunately AI isn’t good at citing its sources. It’s not miles off here but the “1.2% ethnic” is only for Asians and obviously there are other groups. I think Burnham has a good chance since he is running against Starmer’s record and that will help him avoid the Green anti-government backlash. His pitfall may be that he’s on record as supporting rejoining the EU and the constituency was pro-Leave, but I don’t think Brexit is going to be the central issue.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/#E14001350
It’s going to be a very confusing election: vote Labour to get Starmer out; vote Reform to keep Starmer in.
I made the point this morning that three of the ‘national’ news channels – C4, the BBC and Sky News were ‘North Korea esque’
I did retract that statement only because I thought it was somewhat unfair to the KCNA which is usually more balanced than any of them.
The notion the media landscape is hostile to Labour is for the birds. As for Academia and the public Sector we are looking at tens, if not hundreds of thousands of overt fifth columnists across every university and public institution in the land.
This guy might as well have been living in the gravity well of Saturn for all his understanding of the UK.
Can’t leave out ITN.
What’s funny about Sky is they obviously got more left-wing after the takeover by Comcast. Brian L Roberts arguably has more control over it than Murdoch ever did. Yet the left seems to have stopped mentioning it by name when they complain about corporate ownership.
The claim that Murdoch exerts undue control over the editorial line of his papers is absurd when you consider that his main British papers are opposed on almost everything. He also refused to block the WSJ’s investigation into Theranos even though he had invested in the company.
Any government that has the world’s first gay android as Prime Minister and Ministers such as the imbecile Lammy and the Mad Marxist Miliband shouldn’t have five years in power. And the fact that the gay android could be replaced after 18 months by a woman who had the distinction of leaving school with more babies than O levels just seals it…
I think you sell Lammy short. Having seen him in action, he’s a cunning devious spade. But he’s totally uninterested in anything isn’t spade related. And doesn’t even understand why he should be. A far as he’s concerned, it’s beneath his notice. Much the same as the Abbottapotamus.
Not without low cunning in pursuit of his racial advantage, Lammy is thick and ignorant.
…
Eventually, mad people who believe insane things collide with reality, and we’ve had mad people in charge in all western countries for many decades, and they’ve been getting madder and believing ever more insane things.
We are approaching the end of the road, and it doesn’t much matter who’s in No10, we’re going over the cliff.
Gone.
The beach is rapidly coming up to meet us.
Politicians are now talking like that poor whale in Hitchikers Guide.
Anyway, all this bollocks will at least give us the most interesting and probably entertaining by-election in history.
The dick who just resigned had a 5,000-odd majority.
I doubt that the voters in his constituency will be particularly impressed by Burnham.
I might put £100 on Reform to win it.
This Josh Simons MP has just given up potentially 3 years of an MP’s salary, plus benefits. Call it £300k in total he’s given up by resigning his seat.
More if he fancied his chances of staying after 2029.
Has anyone sleuthed out if he’s getting compensated financially, how much and who by. Has Burnham got a sneaky donor dropping money into Simons personal account I wonder.
Probably vermine.
Exactly, he’ll settle for the £300 odd a day and whatver side hustles he can manage.
He was done for at the next election anyway. His past trying to smear journalists has tainted him forever.
Is it even possible to smear modern ‘journalists’?
Simons reported them to the intelligence agencies accusing them of links to Russian intelligence, which is quite some going.
I listened to Simons on the Peter McCormack podcast some time ago and was quite impressed. He came across as thoughtful and practical and although a Remainer accepted that we had left the EU. I was even more impressed to learn that he had been a researcher for Helen Thompson.
With the likes of him and the likes Katie Lam in parliament and a few others I thought there might be some hope in the new generation of politicians.
Boy did that unravel quickly and I went from some admiration, although I could never vote Labour, to utter contempt and his latest stunt of believing the electorate were there to serve politicians is beneath contempt. Just another member of the political class.
By-elections are not regular elections. There’s loads of strange results because there’s really nothing much at stake for the regular bloke. Turnouts are considerably lower than general elections. It’s generally more that opposition voters turn out, so the results often go against the government.
It would be hilarious if Reform win.
What makes this one especially bizarre though is that Burnham will also be running against the record of the government. And while anyone else is a protest vote, he is the only candidate who can actually overthrow the government. The voters may not like what he’s offering – he has been vocal about rejoining the EU* whereas the constituency was heavily pro Leave – but he is a genuine local with a good chance of becoming PM, so they might like that.
* suspect he won’t push this during his leadership campaign and will maybe propose a referendum or something to be included in the next manifesto, don’t think even Labour MPs want an immediate rerun of the Brexit debate.
What makes this one especially bizarre though is that Burnham
Is a complete nobody. Some twat with eyelashes. Andy Burnham is a nomark, and I suspect the electorate is about to tell him to do one like Jimmy Corkhill.
We’re not even talking “one of the S Club 7 opening a new Nandos” levels of popular appeal. The only thing people know Andy Burnham for is being the other white heterosexual (?) male in the Labour Party.
I wonder if Simons hasn’t just done Burnham up like a kipper. This is a by-election with high embarrassment potential for the bland Liverpudlian. Failing here would see him back working at the Carphone Warehouse and Starmer enjoying a bit of relief before the next muppet comes along to claim his crown of shit. We’re not dealing with Thatcher vs Hezza here, most of these people would fail at running a whelk stall on The Apprentice, and then be sacked by a very angry Sir Alan Sugar in full “you’re a mug, you’re a muppet, you’re a slaaag” boardroom beatdown mode.
He isn’t a Liverpudlian, as any Scouser will tell you he’s a Woolyback from Warrington.
…
Entirely OT, when you use that word in the headline I reckon pretty much all of us will have had a first reaction involving Kenneth Williams. Am I wrong?
To save Tim the trouble, yes, you got it in one.
Starmer is a Country Member. Don’t forget …
You’re not wrong, I thought exactly the same thing!
Whah!
Things are tough at Guardian. They’ve had to hire 6 year olds to write for them.
So Johnson, Truss and Sunak weren’t hounded into resigning by the media? For much less than TTK is responsible for.
So, Labour winning 3 times as many big majorities isn’t evidence of any kind of bias, but the fact that they usually hang on to the majority for a shorter period is evidence of bias?
Hmm
Its always delusional.
Labour *represents* powerful economic interests and gets support of the media.