@ruth_mottram@fediscience.orgPretty good analysis from @… but subtleties make it difficult to translate Danish model elsewhere. It's a PR system, so always coalitions many different flavours to vote for; Danish Peoples Party are left on welfare but not on immigration
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/22/danish-model-centre-left-parties-labour-doesnt-work
@markhburton@mstdn.socialA sound move by Jamie Driscoll.
Thrown under a bus by the Starmer clique.
Appears to see YP as too much of a mess to be realistically considered.
Former Labour mayor Jamie Driscoll joins Green Party - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrnm56xdr5o
…
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot"Keir Starmer and senior ministers have been urged by Scottish Labour to “stay behind their doors” in Whitehall to avoid turning the next Holyrood election into a referendum on UK government failures.
Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, said the prime minister’s policy failures and missteps had left voters 'angry, frustrated and impatient'"
Well, he should know.
#ScotPol
@gwire@mastodon.socialA lot of the problem with the UK's asylum system has been related to an overwhelmed administrative capacity (the "backlog") so proposing adding 30 month reviews on top of that seems counter-productive?
(Reminds me of how Conservative governments would routinely increase sentences for those convicted, but refused to increase the prison capacity.)
@MichaelLondonSF@mas.toFine letter from Kate Macintosh on UK Labour Party's irrational retention of the Right to Buy council housing. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/06/why-labour-lacks-credibility-when-it-comes-to-housing
@markhburton@mstdn.socialYes, given the chaos, Your Party supporters should now cut their losses and join the Green Party (E&W).
"This [poll] makes the Green Party the primary opposition party to the neo-fascist Reform UK – and is gaining ground on the static Farage outfit."
Green Party leapfrogs Labour, Tories — the old order is crumbling
@markhburton@mstdn.socialNot so surprising given Starmer's ever greater adoption of Reform's pseudo-policies.
Bolton gets first Reform councillor as former Labour member joins party - Manchester Evening News https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ne
@drgeraint@glasgow.socialBallot Box Scotland 2025 in review: council by-elections
"remember the most important aspect of STV – that the nice simple language used for FPTP of “gain/loss/hold” isn’t as applicable here. Whoever vacated one of three or four seats is not always the same as the overall winner at the last election. It’s entirely possible for the vacating party, the party that had a first preference lead, and the party that would have won a single seat election ... to all be different"
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot"In #Caerphilly, this was certainly a two-party race – but neither of the supposed main parties were in it (#Labour and the #Conservatives had a combined vote share of just 13%)"
Alas,…
@markhburton@mstdn.social"Whether that is a remade Labour, or the Greens, or Your Party, or Scottish and Welsh nationalists the essential issue will be the same – driving Farage back into his hard-core support through a politics of radical change."
Reform voting bloc can be challenged by the left | Morning Star
https://<…
@pre@boing.worldSo the temporary placeholder name "Your Party" is made permanent.
None of the options on the shortlist were good. Most of them just as grammatically inconvenient as the dumb placeholder name.
The people who decide on the short-list, who can be a member, whose votes counts and what the options are, have quite a lot of power.
Zara Sultana boycotted day one over who sets the rules and who can be involved. If Your Party have a governing body with power to override conference they end up like the Labour party and just are easily taken over and usurped by a cabal of thatcherite neoliberal capitalists.
They did allow the dual membership system and a wider governance, so Zara won on who gets to be a member and who gets to be in charge. Which is probably good.
Coz as the terrible name shows, if you put the idiots in charge you'll get idiocy not good collective decision making.
For now the membership appear to have won, and I hear are they are all very excited and fierce and canny and not likely to let the old guard just set up another dictatorship from the top.
They currently have half the membership count of the greens, less than a quarter that claimed by Reform. Lets hope they can get some attention towards something other than how billionaires think the country should be run and focus on the people.
Here's hoping they can inflate that number by draining the Labour party and Reform members who just want change really rather than actually liking anything said by Farage.
#yourParty #ukpol
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot"Gareth Potter (C[onservative]) 690 [votes] (2.05%, -15.29%)"
Alas, poor #Tories, I knew them well.
#Schadenfreude
#Caerphilly
@markhburton@mstdn.socialWhile Phillipson was seen as a Starmer loyalist, in my view she'd have been at least as good a choice. Not that I really care about what happens in Labour Party any more.
Lucy Powell appointed new deputy leader of the Labour Party | ITV News
https://www.itv.com/news/202…
@markhburton@mstdn.social"Some of the mistakes we have made, some of the unforced errors have given a sense that we are not on the side of ordinary people."
I imagine Leo is of the Roman persuasion too.
Who is new deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell? - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev1d3
@markhburton@mstdn.socialWritten to my MP #Venezuela
"I call on you, the Labour Party and the government to condemn in the strongest terms the unprovoked bombing of Caracas and other locations in Venezuela.
This follows a campaign of lies against Venezuela and its president: US security experts make it clear there is no evidence that Venezuela is a significant source of drugs entering the US. Venezuelan oi…
@markhburton@mstdn.socialGiven the remarkable #GreensSurge in members and polling, and the ongoing chaotic infighting at 'Your Party', it's maybe worth reposting my questioning of both leaderships on the eco-planetary crisis and overshoot.
As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda? – degrowthUK
