Brett-Butler

I think it'll be one of the less household name-y candidates in the end. I've gone for Nadhim Zahawi. If he's likely to be known to the general public for anything, it's for something positive (looking after the vaccine rollout), and his very short stature as Chancellor will mean his name will carry some recency bias. Plus his story is the sort of social climbing story a la John Major that the grassroots tend to like (a refugee from Iraq who came to the UK not speaking English and working his way into the cabinet). As to who I want, I said someone else. Regardless who'll be the next Prime Minister from any party, I will be disappointed, for different reasons.

The (paywalled) story says that the 3 in question are all male, but if those 3 go it could lead to others jumping ship.

The Daily Telegraph are reporting this evening that three Tory MPs are in negotiations to defect to the Labour Party, joining Christian Wakeford, who defected earlier this year. If this is true, and leads to more MPs leaving the ship, then the talks of an early General Election could be more than pie in the sky.

There was a Japanese artist that had a top 10 hit back in 1963, and even more surprising for the time is that it was sung in Japanese. Kyu Sakamoto had a #5 hit with "Sukiyaki". What isn't surprising for the time is that "Sukiyaki" wasn't the original name of the song - it is "Ue o Muite Arukō", a song about looking up as you walk so you won't cry. It was changed to "Sukiyaki" as it was a Japanese food that Westeners were familiar with at the time, and is not mentioned in the lyrics, and has no bearing on the song. A few other Japanese artists have had top 40 singles before - Yellow Magic Orchestra had a #17 hit with the great instrumental "Computer Game" in 1980, and Ryuchi Sakamoto had a Top 20 hit in 1983 with "Forbidden Colours", taken from the soundtrack of the David Bowie film "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence" (and later formed the basis of Watergate's 2000 hit "Heart of Asia"). *edit* noticed the popcharkfreak mentioned the same songs in the article itself.

Ian Broudie & co have announced the release of "See You In The Stars", the first album from the Lightning Seeds since "Four Winds" back in 2009 (or if like Ian Broudie, you don't count it as a "proper" LS album, their first since "Tilt" in 1999). The first single is pure (pardon the pun) Lightning Seeds, highly optimistic, grown-up pop music. flbVTa0dIZo They're always going to be more known in the public consciousness for "3 Lions", but I'm a big fan of their regular back catalogue, and "Sunshine" is a lovely addition to that.

My mother contracted Bells-Palsy (which is similar), so I know just how terrible it can be. Thankfully my mum’s has long since recovered, although even now she can’t stand wind blowing in her face, so I hope Justin makes a good recovery.

Boris wins, although his % was worse than when Theresa May had a vote of no-confidence, and she resigned a few months after that.

Socially conservative spin-off from UKIP. They stood a candidate in the NI Assembly election last month and got less than 200 votes.

I had a feeling that BBC4 might be on the end of its legs as it's become more of a heritage channel showing repeats rather than commissioning new shows - not that I don't want to see Yes Minister & Keeping Up Appearances again, there's other channels that could do that instead. It's a pity, as there's some shows that would never have existed without BBC4 - "Only Connect" is the sort of esoteric quiz that could only have been commissioned by BBC4, and it's now on BBC2 owing it its surprise success. "The Thick of It" also started on BBC4 as well, and is the most well regarded political sitcoms of the 21st century.

Rishi Sunak has announced a temporary windfall tax of 25% on oil and gas companies, with 8 million households to get £650 towards energy payments. Pensioners will also get an increased Winter Fuel allowance and the disabled will get a one-off payment of £150.

The candidates for the Tiverton and Honiton by-election on 23rd of June have also been announced, held due to Conservative MP Neil Parish loving tractors a little to much: Jordan Donaghue-Morgan (Heritage Party) Andy Foan (Reform UK) Richard Foord (Lib Dem) Helen Hurford (Conservative) Liz Pole (Labour) Frankie Rufolo (For Britain) Ben Walker (UKIP) Gill Westcott (Green) A smaller candidate list here, although the far-right anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic For Britain are running a candiate here. The Tories won by 60% here in 2019, even with a concerted campaign by the Lib Dems I still predict they'll hold it.

The candidates for the Wakefield by-election on the 23rd June, held following Imran Khan's conviction for sexual assault, have been announced - Nadeem Ahmed (Conservative) Akef Akbar (Ind) Paul Bickerdike (Christian People's Alliance) Mick Dodgson (Freedom Alliance) Sir Archibald Stanton Earl 'Eaton (Official Monster Raving Loony) Jayda Fransen (Ind) Jordan Gaskell (UKIP) David Herdson (Yorkshire Party) Therese Hirst (English Democrats) Christopher Jones (Northern Independence Party) Simon Lightwood (Labour) Jamie Needle (Lib Dem) Ashley Routh (Green) Ashlea Simon (Britain First) Chris Walsh (Reform UK) Labour lost this seat in 2019, so would be hoping to win this back given the circumstances of the election, mixed with the Tories' growing unpopularity. The Northern Independence party stands its first candidate in a Westminster by-election (it didn't feature on the ballot paper for the Hartlepool by-election owing to an admin error, so its candidate was listed as an independent). The far-right Britain First are standing, alongside one of its former leaders. Freedom Alliance still seem to be running candidates, long after their main raison d'etre has been declared moot. I'm predicting a Labour victory, albeit not as strong a victory as you'd expect given the circumstances.

Martin Lewis is on ITV now, I imagine he will have some choice words.

Good news, the 12” version of “She Still Leads Me” that’s for sale on the Suede official website contains THREE b-sides that aren’t on the album. I’ve already got my pre-order in. It’s a great lead single, much more raw than anything they’ve released in a long time.

Could actual Mark McCabe of “Maniac 2000” fame finally get a hit on the other side of the Irish Sea?

After that performance, I’m predicting top 5 in the final for Ireland. What a banger.

I don’t think I’m the target audience for San Marino.

Hope someone’s made a list of all the Italian dance songs in this mega mix.

I’ve no intention of watching Sex Education so I won’t have seen Ncuti Gatwa acting before seeing him as The Doctor, but hopefully he’ll do a good job. It’ll be the first time that actor playing The Doctor was born after me, which I believe is another ‘you’re getting old’ moment.

Yes, got great respect for Paul. I briefly helped him out with deliveries from the soup iamspamspamamiat the start of the pandemic. Wouldn’t surprise me if Nicola stood alongside him in his ward at the local elections, given that he got more than 2 quotas in 2019 and the SDLP surprisingly only stood 1 in Oldpark. Although my insider tells me she believes that there’ll be another Assembly election within 6 months, so she might get a shot at getting her (now lost) seat back.

An interesting thing to note - the Social Democratic Party (SDP) picked up a council seat in Leeds. Think it’s their first direct win in an election for a long time.

A couple of big scalps are expected - the Infrastructure Minister Nicola Mallon of SDLP is expected to lose her seat in my home turf of North Belfast to the Alliance Party, who could do much better than I expected. Green Party leader Claire Bailey could lose her Belfast South Seat to the same party, and their North Down seat could go as well.

PBP will be very squeaky-bum time to hold their West Belfast seat. They’re currently 6th on 1st preference votes, with DUP 5th at the moment (would be very weird if West Belfast was their only gain!). Transfers will almost definitely get him over the line though.

Early polling (take with a MASSIVE grain of salt) is that the TUV could be taking a massive chunk out of the DUP’s vote. If they end up winning more seats than expected (I wasn’t expecting them to win more than 1), then the DUP could end up as the 3rd party. Although the TUV would need to get near to double figures for that to be a realistic prospect.

What’s the staging like for it? Hopefully an improvement on the giant trumpets from last year.