Tootfinder

Well, the Makerfield by-election is over. Voting just closed.
I don't live there, but if I did I think you gotta vote Labour in order to destroy this Labour government.
Which is in itself pretty mad. Demonstrating the utterly broken nature of the whole political system.
This is surely the only circumstance in which I switch away from the Greens.
As I said last month, they absolutely should have stood and spoke in front of every camera pointed at the constituency. Dunno that they managed the second part. I didn't see much of her myself, certainly.
Anyway, the point is that there's only one candidate at this election which has any chance at all of changing the direction of this government.
None of the others might be Prime Minister by autumn. Nobody else who wins can do that. There's only one candidate who can probably unseat the failing prime minister.
Would be voting more in hope than expectation of course.
He won't be very different. Certainly he's the same on Israel's genocide, on taxing wealth, on fiscal rules preventing government investment, on private industry being better than government owned industry, on capitalism, on the bond market, on the monarchy, on the pointless drug war, on conflating protest with terrorism, on the house of lords, on AI, on Free Software, on copyright, on age-gating and surveilling the internet.
But maybe that one difference, "public 'control' without ownership of industry" is at least a bit better than just Starmer thinking the state is powerless against American AI? He might try a bit harder to build more houses?
So not voting in expectation of anything really changing here, but voting for the only candidate who will even be in a position to try.
If you dislike Starmer and prefer any of the other candidates, if you prefer Greens, or Conservatives, or Restore, or Reform, or Lib Dem, or anarchy or antifa or woke then you should vote for the Labour Party candidate to cause Starmer's downfall.
You should only be voting against Starmer's Labour Party if you are happy with Starmer's Labour government and want Starmer to stay.
And only like 75,000 people even get to mark a ballot.
"Restore" are the splitters from Reform (who are in turn the Nativist right wing party splitters from the Conservatives).
They left Reform because Reform weren't racist enough for them, mostly. Their vote count is key here. Will their vote be higher than the Labour/Reform margin?
I think probably it will.
So the Restore Party is the spoiler that forces the PM out of office by splitting the nazi vote and allowing in a challenger to the PM.
Insane election. 😵‍💫
Apparently nobody conducted an exit poll, so we'll find out in the morning.
#ukpol #makerfield

Starmer is doing a thing about election results. Is he resigning?
He says the elections were tough, he lost brilliant representatives. He feels the hurt and takes responsibility. Not just for the results, but also for explaining how they'll do better in the years ahead.
Times are dangerous, opponents are very dangerous, if we don't get it right the country will be on a very dark path.
He takes responsibility for navigation in this dangerous world and for not walking away.
Oh right, he's not resigning then. 😦
He says he'll prove his doubters wrong. He's learned a lot! And realizes now we need a bigger response to this unordinary times.
Times demand serious progressive leadership he says, and Zack or Nigel can't provide that. [Citation needed] Only Labour can [Really, come on, citation needed]
He's pleased to be reducing NHS waiting lists and crime, and for some reason is pleased migration is coming down too.
He says he realizes that people don't think Labour cares about them. So that's something.
So his plan to fix things after this election is to talk more about why he's doing things instead of just saying what he's doing.
Right. Sure. That'll help.
He admits millions of people, like his sister, don't get respect or help and are held back because the status quo doesn't work.
He says he's fighting for them but, eh, perhaps he should be doing that thing where he says more about why and how?
He says we need a complete break to take control of energy and defense and fairness (he isn't resigning though, not THAT complete a break)
"Strength Through Fairness, Hope and Urgency" is his plan.
Three concrete examples of the plan:
Sure, about time, not like the Greens are against that.
Doesn't sound like he wants a re-join though, so not really sure what this means. The EU don't allow partial memberships or cherry picking benefits. Some kind of external heart I guess, an outside-body heart pump?
No. He's going to guarantee training or work placements to school leavers.
So in response to likely being unelected next time, he'll nationalize steel (now he's failed to find a corporate buyer anyway), is going to renegotiate with Europe (again, they have no better offers to give), and offer apprenticeships to education-leavers (who are still going to be mostly in debt by then).
Right.
Oh, and he's going to ban more marches too. Almost forgot that.
What a cock.
He did sound a bit passionate at least for a change.
#ukpol #starmer