In my ward the greens seem to have got about a third of the vote vs Labour with the rest. 2:1
Which is a big improvement. 300 or so neighbors to turn.
In the borough we've gone from unanimous Labor to about a third Green. Which is oddly proportional to my ward. Not really sure I understand the actual counting system with the three votes I had or if it's PR or not.
Nationally its awful for Labour but also worse for the country since outside London they lost mostly to the Reform (nee Brexit) party/private-company.
Conservatives seem irrelevant, even Lib Dems more important.
I've been casting doubt upon the idea of an imminent Reform government, saying it'd be unprecedented for Reform to go from one ever elected MP to 400 MPs in a single election. But these elections feel pretty close to that kind of swing.
Starmer says he'll stay on. He has no concept of what government should do other than give tax breaks to businesses to try to get economic growth, and crack down in authoritarian ways with increased surveillance and ID checks and prosecuting protestors.
He doesn't seem to realize that government can just do things, especially after Brexit. It can just pay people to build infrastructure owned by and giving profit to the state. It does not need private investment. Isn't that supposed to be the point of a Labour party?
So things will continue to get worse and Labour will continue to chase Reform policies (and so validate them). So Reform may well win.
There is one hope. Burnham could resign as mayor, a safe-seat MP could resign, and Burnham stands there. Assuming he wins he could then stand for leadership. And then if he wins and then actually does something despite the protest of the right wing of his own party, maybe things could get better.
That's a lot of conditionals. You'd want good odds to place a bet on that.
Or the greens of course. These elections have seen hundreds of new green councilors. The momentum is good. Probably take the council here next time unless that Burnham things happens.
So good for Greens, but better for Reform, and we could do with a Labour party which wasn't failing.
Oh well. Fingers crossed I guess. Few more years till the national ones.
#ukpol