Brett-Butler

With a 10% tariff, plus tariff-free trade with the EU block, Northern Ireland could end up as a surprise winner in this trade war. As long as there's still an economy.

The candidates for the Runcorn and Helsby have been announced - Catherine Anne Blaiklock (English Democrats) Dan Clarke (Liberal Party) Chris Copeman (Green Party) Paul Duffy (Liberal Democrats) Peter Ford (Workers Party) Howling Laud Hope (Monster Raving Loony Party) Sean Houlston (Conservatives) Jason Philip Hughes (Volt UK) Alan McKie (independent) Graham Harry Moore (English Constitution Party) Paul Andrew Murphy (Social Democratic Party) Sarah Pochin (Reform) Karen Shore (Labour) John Stevens (Rejoin EU) Michael Williams (independent) As expected, as it is the first by-election of the new parliament, the high profile nature of this election has seen a mammoth candidate list, where outside the 3 parties who could realistically win the seat are many smaller parties who are presumably more involved to gain publicity for their party/themselves rather than hoping to actually win (those of us with a long memory can remember the high-profile Corby by-election of 2012, where one of the candidates was Mr Mozzarella, a character from the JustEat adverts). Alongside the usual parties, there is the pan-European centre-left party Volt UK, Rejoin UK, whose raison d'etre is left to your imagination, and the deputy leader of George Galloway's Workers Party. Those nostalgic for the heady days of 1987 will be glad to know that alongside the Liberal Democrats, there are also candidates from the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. Catherine Blaiklock, who founded the Brexit Party before Nigel Farage forced her out, is standing for the far-right English Democrats. As sometimes happens, there is a party running I'd never heard of before now, the English Constitution Party. As they split off from the English Democrats, and have expressed admiration for ousted Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, you can probably guess where they are on the spectrum. The by-election is on 1 May, the same date as the local elections in many parts of England. Despite talks of a Reform gain, I'm still forecasting a Labour win, albeit with a margin that will make Keir Starmer a bit unsettled.

Do you have the weekend figures for “Time Travel is Dangerous”? I went to see it on Saturday and it had a decent cast of household British comedy names in supporting roles, but seems to have gone completely under the radar (there were only 3 people at our screening, including me and my wife).

Also hope that Butler, Blake & Grant hold onto the top 40. It features members of two of my favourite bands, Bernard Butler formerly of Suede (and half of my namesake), Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub, as well as James Grant, who has done some interesting stuff over the years (albeit not someone I was familiar with before this album).

How many sales have the last few Darkness albums sold? Is it likely that they will end up selling more copies of this album in week 1 than some of their other albums have in years?

Me please.

Britain Elects/New Statesman currently predicting a slight Labour win. Their analysis is quite interesting, as the seat is split into areas that are equally as likely to vote for Labour and Reform (as well as a few Tory leaning ones) New StatesmanA Reform Labour showdown looms in the Runcorn by-electionThe polls are fractured, but Farage’s party fancies its chances.

One suspects that Mike Amesbury was holding off of resigning his seat long enough until Reform started to dip in the polls, hence why he waited until after the weekend. I’m going to predict a Labour win in this one, albeit one by a slim margin, as I suspect quite a fair few voters will want to give Labour a bloody nose (if you’ll pardon the expression given the reason for this by-election).

I’m sure Keir Starmer will be very happy about this Trump endorsement, I imagine he would see a Prime Minister getting his seal of approval as a very fine thing indeed. Apropos of nothing, here’s a Tweet from a few years back - @1134833523959971840

Labour Party news to watch out for this week- the six month suspension of the seven Labour MPs that voted to scrap the Catholic tax (two child benefit cap) is due to end this week (if my maths are correct). I’m predicting that 2 of them will not return to the fold.

It’s a remarkable coincidence that rumours of Franz Ferdinand performing at Eurovision just happen to coincide with the release of their new album. As much as I’d love to see it, unfortunately I think it’ll be someone else. Interestingly, it’s not the first time their name has come up. They were rumoured to be performing the Greek entry way back in 2005!

If you’re hoping it’s Alice Cooper instead of Marti Pellow because the latter is a born again Christian, then I’ve got some disappointing news for you.

Now that 2024 has rudely left us, let's see how my 2024 predictions held up - You didn't need to be Mystic Meg to predict that Labour would win the General Election, and I was right about the Lib Dems having their best election and coming third, the SNP being reduced to single figures, and Jeremy Corbyn remaining in parliament. I did underestimate the Labour landslide, and although I was right that there would be an "awkward squad" of Labour MPs, I didn't see Starmer suspending them to get them out of his hair. I was right that Biden would leave it too late to stand down with Kamala becoming the default candidate, that the Republicans would win, and that (in a roundabout way) Robert Kennedy would help. I was dead wrong about Donald Trump being the Republican candidate & winner though. The Assembly came back in February without the need for fresh elections, long before Starmer came to power. The extreme right did make gains in EU elections, and border polices have become tougher in mainland Europe. The political pole-reversal for UK membership of the EU didn't happen in 2024 to any real extent, but I still think its something to look out for. Nothing on PR yet. Yeah, can't spin this one. Got it dead wrong. I was right that Kemi would become Tory leader, and a handful of opinion polls from November onwards have shown the Tories leading Labour. No Labour party members lost the whip for attacking Kemi Badenoch (although Dawn Butler came close). Probably the biggest political thing I didn't predict for 2024 was the rise of Reform UK, outpolling the Lib Dems in votes & Farage getting into parliament for the first time, which I put down to underestimating how catastrophically bad the Tories would do in the election. Although I imagine I wasn't the only one who wrote RUK off.

I’d intended to apply for this, unfortunately you needed to supply a Republic of Ireland phone number for the form so a Nordie couldn’t take part. Will be interesting to see how this compares to other international versions.

*cries in Reformation*

Fun fact - me and Dean went to the same drama group in Belfast in our teens. Whilst we were there, we were asked to be photographed for some anti-bullying posters to be used in the local trusts. I never saw them myself, but a few people I know said they've seen them in hospitals for a few years afterwards. He hasn't covered himself in glory from what I've seen of I'm a Celeb this series unfortunately.

Think this story may end picking up a bit of traction - a newly elected Labour MP, with a portfolio of seven rental properties, is accused of making a mother of two homeless, as well as conflicts of interest from his time as a councillor.

Now that we're over 4 months into the new parliament, thought it was time to open up a new by-election thread, ahead of any potential Westminister by-elections on the cards, as well as ones outside the HoP. Since the General Election in July there has been 150 by-elections in councils across Great Britain. Many of these have been as a result of newly elected MPs resigning their council seats, although there are other reasons for stepping down, such as retiring, getting up to unacceptable behaviour, or moving house. The aggregate results make for interesting reading, with Labour losing 22 seats and the Tories winning nearly the same amount, with Reform UK & the Greens also making net gains. Now there obviously could be local factors at play in these by-elections that transcend party politics in some of these cases, but those quite a lot of seats lost in such a short space of time, especially given their recent successes in the local elections in May. @1859940695093428598

Definitely not watching as much anime now as I used to, just two series that I'm watching weekly this cour, the absolutely bonkers Dandadan, and rather nostalgically given that the original series was the first one I watched in full when I originally got into anime, the remake of Ranma 1/2. And yes, I am hoping that Luce gets an anime series in 2025...

He can’t unless the constitution changes, given he was born in South Africa. And likely wouldn’t even if he could.

Goodness, 2nd in my first contest entry in years. I didn’t think it would do as well as it did, but probably being the only real Indie-rock song helped it out. Nice to see me and gooddelta ended up swapping top marks, I thought it was a sure fire winner of a song, great storytelling. And congratulations to Addy! for the win.

This is all rather exciting.

Fun fact - "Homes Under The Hammer" now has a new "Estate Agents Theme", presumably due to Harry Hill taking the proverbial out of it. Not a fan of the "Baa Baa Black Sheep" song. It's a 20 second joke stretched out into 6 minutes.

We could have the first by-election of the current parliament soon as Mike Amebury (who has now had the Labour whip removed) has been charged with assault. If found guilty, he will have to resign if he's sentenced to more than a year, or face a recall election if he receives a shorter custodial sentence. He won the constituency in July with a majority of 15k, so unless the 2nd place Reform UK perform a surprise upset, then it'll more than likely be a Labour hold.

I may as well put all my thoughts on this (ill informed and slightly less ill-informed) into one big infodump. Firstly, regardless of who won, I was hoping that the result would be emphatic, with the winner clearing both the Electoral College & the popular vote with sizeable margins, which is what will happen once all the votes are counted, so there's that. My predictions for this election (which I didn't commit to paper this time) were similar to back in 2016 - up until a few weeks ago I thought Trump would win, but then shifted to Kamala Harris with a few weeks to go after seeing the early votes in swing states going in her favour. Once again, never ask me to predict anything political, as I inevitably get it wrong. I do not see election turning out the way because Trump won. The election turned out the way it did because the Democrats lost. When Joe Biden ran in 2020, it should have been clear from the outset that he would run for only one term, so that a proper primary process could be undertaken to find a popular successor within the party. When that didn't happen, the Democrats' chance of winning became slim given Biden's health (I refuse to believe that the Democrats didn't know there were issues with his health until his debate with Trump, I'm sure in the next few years there will be interesting insider books that come out setting out what the Biden White House was like from the inside, which will be rather juicy). Once he finally dropped out, they should have arranged an expediated emergency primary to get a candidate with popular approval within the party. Instead, they went with the vice president Kamala Harris, who proved so unpopular when she ran in 2020 that she withdrew early in the process, and would not likely have won the nomination had she taken part in a full primary. I have some sympathy for her given that she was only given a few months to prepare for running for president instead of a full year lead-in, but in hindsight she was never going to win on a "I'm not Donald Trump", even with the backing of Dick Cheney and Richard Spencer. As to the question of "she lost because she was black & a woman", lets not forget that Barack Obama did win two elections, so colour is not a barrier to the highest office. I've said before that when America does elect a woman as president, I believe that she will be a Republican rather than a Democrat, so the next Republican primary will be interesting. As for those saying that the Democrats lost because [insert something that confirms my priors], I will say that the Democratic campaign that ran was more leftward than the average voter on social issues, and more rightward than the average American on economic issues. It's interesting to note that in ballot initiatives "conservative" deep red states Missouri & Alaska passed votes to increase the minimum wage, whilst bluer than a blue whale California voted 70% in favour of tougher punishments for theft & drug related crime. It's almost as if being economically left wing whilst being more (but not totally) socially conservative is a vote winner.* I've seen it reported that one of the few demographics where the Democrats improved between now and 2020 was with voters who earn more than $100,000 per year. I understand the irony of the working classes voting for the party of billionaire Donald Trump and the richest man in the world Elon Musk, but the Democrats losing its working class support underpins the rightward shift of the working classes. It was once believed that demographics were destiny, and that the less white the US becomes, the less likely the Republicans would ever win again. Given nearly all demographics shifted to Trump (with the majority of Latinos voting for him, even with the "garbage" comments!), I think we can shatter that myth once and for all. This election makes the UK somewhat an outlier in the Western world, with it being one of the few countries that hasn't shifted rightward in its recent elections (although that may have something to do with our jolly electoral system of first past the post, see also France). Hopefully Labour can learn a few lessons from it before 2029 to ensure that they don't become a single term government as well. I also don't envy them having to cosy up to Trump now especially given what they've said about him over the years (especially David Lammy, although he has said that he does have a good relationship with VP elect JD Vance, which I can somewhat understand given his Blue Labour leanings). Being in opposition really is politics on easy mode, but once you're in power everything changes. As for Trump, there are two things that concern me more than anything else with him in a 2nd term. The first is on Ukraine, he has said that he wants the war with Russia to end as soon as possible. Now I'm all for peace and and end to war, but if a peace deal is struck early on in his term, then such a deal would see Ukraine waving goodbye to Crimea for good, and likely have to give up some of the mainland territory in Donbas that Putin has taken since 2022. And I don't trust Putin not to salami slice Europe even if a deal is brokered (Moldova could be next). I'm also pretty concerned if Robert Kennedy Jr is put in charge of health in any future Trump administration, his anti-vaccination stance could literally kill millions of children if he is allowed to enact even a fraction of it. Finally, given how volatile politics are at the moment, I suspect that the Democrats will win back the White House in 2028. I'm not even going to attempt to predict who with just yet. Thar be my two pence worth, whether you agree or not. *Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite.