Content warning: UKPol Makerfield Result
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
@cdarwin@c.im
![Posted Thursday, June 18, 2026 at 7:55 PM [Name redacted]
The reflecting pool saga is just such a parable for what happens when you sideline real experts and replace them with hubris.
I had to see it for myself. Yes it’s green, although not radioactively so. Yes, the liner is already peeling, and it’s getting worse. I could see the edge sway in the eddies and currents along the 1.5x1.5 foot hole exposing the slab beneath.
I know a pool guy who may be able to fix it for 14 billion dollars. …](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/776/896/158/916/156/original/7aeb1a1890792d1c.png)
