It's not actually that bad a performance though. Seems they are making ground in some of the liberal territories and cities but really struggling to win back some key places in the North, especially in towns.

 

I do agree Burnham is a potential future leader of the Party. I think his general image would help, Starmer suffers a bit too much from middle-class Toff, which is ironic really when that's exactly what Boris is.

 

 

Yes Boris is an Eton and Oxford posh toff but with that he's also a loveable mistake prone silly buffoon too and people like that. :D

Problem with that is there isn’t much stability in those voters, outside of London the south has small towns and middle class home owners who will shift Tory depending on the situation. The northern seats were culturally a part of the trade Union and heavy industry which is where the Labour movement began!

 

I wonder how much the past year has affected people moving from London to those towns and cities around it.

 

@1391057174340702208

 

 

 

I wonder how much the past year has affected people moving from London to those towns and cities around it.

 

@1391057174340702208

Hmm, Labour gained two seats in Cambridgeshire; the Lib Dems gained five. Without Labour's gains, it would still have gone to NOC.

The loss of West of England mayoralty is as big a news story as Tees Valley and West Mids results but the Tory media will ensure it gets less attention than those 🙄

 

The Tories lost the Cambs and Peterborough one too.

Sadiq Khan has just been re-elected London Mayor.

I wonder how much the past year has affected people moving from London to those towns and cities around it.

 

@1391057174340702208

 

There’s some excellent points there but my point above is still important and it only takes into account the fact that these people went to university so will automatically be Labour or liberal leftists and doesn’t take into account changes in peoples views and lives/events in the years after that. Plus I would argue that Labour should want to represent the workers and most vulnerable as a starting point in any election victory.

Perhaps Iz or Jacob could explain this one. The worst results for the Lib Dems (as far as I've seen) were in Cornwall where they suffered heavy losses. As fishing is important there and the fishing industry has been shafted in Johnson's deal, I might have expected tohe Tories to do badly but they haven't. Why?

 

I'd characterise Cornwall lately as probably more like the North-East than you'd expect. Lots of poorer neighbourhoods that are seeing traditional industry declining and very little in the way of diversity. Fishing is important there but no more than agriculture or factory work. Places like Camborne are going to be just as likely to be trending Tory as your Hartlepools. Plus plenty of wards (small villages) full of nearly nothing but pensioners. It's also probably a case of redrawn council boundaries and a reduction in seats that didn't favour the Lib Dems. And the traditional idea of Cornwall liberalism nearly gone.

 

The result I've focused in on is our dad, who actually (for LDs) got nearly double the votes the LDs got in the previous ward with the same name, still came 2nd though - which might indicate that theory of redrawn boundaries.

 

I also added up the vote totals across the county, and if you were to transcribe them to a general election result then while the Tories still have all 6 seats as they have the last few generals, the Lib Dems would be within inches of taking back North Cornwall, which is interesting as currently the Tories have a 15k majority there. However, Truro & Falmouth doesn't have the unusual Labour increase that it had in 2017 and 2019 on these results* that sees it falling to Labour in electoral calculuses I've ran over the past few months.

 

*I wonder what could have caused that.

Thanks Iz.

Plus I would argue that Labour should want to represent the workers and most vulnerable as a starting point in any election victory.

Having a solid hold on the part of the Britain with the by far the lowest rate of home ownership and highest poverty rates - London - is a good start then.

 

I think part of Labour's problem is that some within the party seem to despise the voters they've won over in the last few elections and fetishise the electorate of decades ago.

Absolutely, interesting that Labour win Peterborough/Cambridge but lose Durham the latter for the first time since 1918 one of the first ever councils they won!! Maybe symbolises the changes in support.

^It absolutely symbolises the realignment - but there is a path to uniting both the new voters and Labour's traditional voters.. but that has been completely destroyed now by the centrist/right of the party.

 

@1390777449529712641

 

Nobody here is talking about the success of the Labour Party in Preston (posted above - but also I posted this on Friday) - incidentally a town and not a city in the Northwest, and exactly the kind of place that absolutely could be heading towards the misery of the Conservatives like so many other former Labour heartlands have in the past 20 years, and like those places is a former industrialised and now ‘left behind’ and forgotten part of the United Kingdom.

 

The reason? A bold and transformative (primarily left wing) policy approach that offers up hope and a future that gives people a reason to turn up and vote FOR you. These are the same policies that won a huge swing toward Labour in 2017 (c.9.5% increase in vote share on 2 years earlier, the biggest since 1945 in ANY election-to-election) and the same policies that I’ve had to put up with people telling me were ‘unpopular’ and were ‘the reason for the 2019 defeat’, and which were completely pummelled for year upon year and drowned out by the right of the Labour Party in cahoots with the right-wing billionaire press and media establishment, who collectively shit their pants in June 2017 when they saw what changes could happen and what way the political winds were blowing. The MELTS on the centrist/right of the party decided to destroy it, and they have succeeded (mostly).

 

This defeat at Hartlepool and across the NE/W Mids/Yorkshire is on THEM. OWN it you arseholes - and think about changing right now, because if you don’t it WILL get worse (I’m thinking 160-170 seats in 2024 rn) and you can forget 2024, 2029 or ever quite frankly because the Tories have worked it out, they can game the system through boundary reviews, voter apathy and dupe people by giving the answers they want to hear and even trick them to thinking voting Tory is a vote for change (despite being the incumbents for the best part of 11 years now and completely f***ing up the Pandemic response).

 

I’m so angry, but even more I’m heartbroken because I don’t think they will change - the only hope I have today is Scotland going independent.

 

 

You are completely right, Doctor Blind, but Tory Rooney will be on here in a second to explain why those extremely popular left wing policies are, in fact, unpopular.

You are completely right, Doctor Blind, but Tory Rooney sill be on here in a second to explain why those ectremely popular left wing policies are, in fact, unpopular.

 

This is precisely why the hard left will never gain control of the Party, anyone who has a slight different ideology to them is immeditely labelled a Tory - not needed.

 

Labour's left-wing economic policies are popular, I've never ever doubted this. The problem is Corbyn was not popular outside of his fanclub and more importnntly with the electorate. Now the dust has settled the Labour results outside of Hartlepool aren't that bad. Does look like Labour might focus on the south now, which I think is very risky myself as any gains you'll trade with losses.

 

As I've said before, the issue larger is you cannot apply a one size fits all across all these different towns. The country needs more devolution in the North, there are way too many issues up here which just cannot be solved with Government (lack of) funding .A council does a good job, suggests some improvements and gets re-elected? Shock horror. I live in a Labour seat and we change councils every cycle as everyone who touches leadership does an absolutely dreadful job no matter what party they support. Or they're corrupt.

Fantasic work of the progressive alliance between Lib Dems & Greens in Oxfordshire :clap: Textbook example of how you can damage the Tories by working together. All of Lib Dems, Greens and Labour taking seats that I don't think anyone would have expected them too in the crumbling 'Blue Wall'.

 

@1391451009751396354

Very pleased that in Bristol the Greens are now joint with Labour with the highest number of councillors.

The Tory candidate for PCC in Wiltshire (who will almost certainly win) will not be able to take up the post because of a drink-driving conviction 30 years ago. That means that another election will be required.

 

 

In the election for Sussex PCC, one voter in Brighton and Hove wrote in the name of Jackie Weaver.

@1391710867859836929

 

:nocheer:

I mean he’s awful anyway but I don’t really see how you can do two jobs like that with any kind of quality. It’s like Truss selling British pork and cheese markets on one hand and being in charge of equality which apparently, in her view, means it’s fine for men to wolf-whistle lone woman if the person whistling is “hot” :nocheer:

Edited May 11, 20214 yr by Smint

Is he a councillor and and MP now?