Iz様 🌟

Note that most expected Green-leaning councils haven't reported yet, particularly central Manchester and north London. They've done pretty good in Exeter, Reading and Oxford which have reported. My estimation is that we'd still expect them to get ~600 seats from what's left to report. Maybe 400 on the lower end. No point talking about them underperforming until those Green leaning councils are in.

I wish I could vote you lucky bastards, my area isn't up until next year. Hope you all get the councillors you want and we don't inexplicably see a Reform wave in the most urban areas of the country.

34. The X Factor Finalists 2010 – Heroes 2 weeks at #1 (entered 28th November): 01-01-07-14-22-47-91 Kept off #1: Ellie Goulding – Your Song #60 EOY Look I’m not exactly making myself a connoisseur of X Factor finalists getting together and doing a vacuous charity single for charity that leaves no cultural impact, but, of the charity singles from the years they did it, I think ‘Heroes’ has to be the worst. Herbs and Jim covered what this is right at the start of their respective threads, but for the avoidance of doubt, this is Simon Cowell’s vanity project desiring yet more goes at the top spot in the name of charity while simultaneously getting attention for his TV show. ‘Heroes’ is almost completely a retread of the 2008 version which returns the charity this song raises money to the Help The Heroes charity, which helps injured military personnel and, while it’s not something I’d ever donate to, it serves a purpose for those with a connection to the military. 2008’s ‘Hero’, I think was an appropriate choice of song, an inspirational if unremarkable ballad that fits thematically with the charity. David Bowie’s “Heroes” is a very different matter. It’s a far more complex song that, while I don’t think I’m entirely equipped to give a critical breakdown and analysis of its lyrics, I wouldn’t say taking it at face value and doing a karaoke cover of it is anywhere close to contributing to Bowie’s vision of the song nor does it really fit with the charity’s mission and to be honest, I’m somewhat surprised he ever signed off on it. I suppose it is one of his most covered songs regardless and the average person wouldn’t see anything wrong with it at face value, which to be honest turns me against this even more – as a representation of the vacuous copying mainstream culture that X Factor was at this time. I do have to admit that this year, back in 2010, I was actually really into the show, I had somehow missed watching previous series but for two seasons, in 2010, and in 2011, I briefly started enjoying it – there was a set of charismatic contestants, competition stakes were high, there were good guests on the live shows and honestly, it was fine television. If more obviously problematic and capitalistic looking back. Again, I got tired of the show quickly, but I did watch and enjoy the 2010 TV show for what it was. More on that later. Even then I didn't like this charity single though. This version features, with mismatched vocals and clearly inexperienced singers all around, the first chart appearance of One Direction and all its members, Rebecca Ferguson, Cher Lloyd, and other miscellaneous personalities, and while I don’t feel mean enough to single out anyone for any particular lines (poor Wagner was FORCED into this), there’s a lot of variable quality here and it has even less musical merit in comparison to its original than the previous 2 singles did – unless one were to want their version of “Heroes” to come with breathy oversinging and bad harmonies. It kept off Ellie Goulding’s cover of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ from the top, goodness, the UK charts really were addicted to covers of classic pop songs from the 70s and 80s this year, though that at least is a competent version. It’s just amateurish, even compared to previous years. Two weeks at #1 is a comparative eternity in 2010 that it did not deserve, but again, it plummeted and never regained any relevance ever again. Hopefully this post about it is the first time anyone has ever thought about it since 2011 started.

35. JLS – The Club Is Alive 1 week at #1 (entered 17th July): 01-07-09-16-23-32-39-53-63-81 Kept off #1: None EOY #87 oops I forgot a song. 36 number ones it is. I chose to make it not quite as easy as filling up the bottom slots with charity singles and talent show covers. So even though it’s a second order relation to that sphere, ‘The Club Is Alive’ can have the dubious honour of being the lowest… original song on this list. Though considering it steals the central pitch behind its lyrics from The Sound Of Music, that itself is in question. JLS, or as I can never resist calling them by their full name, Jack The Lad Swing, enter 2010 as quite possibly the most famous current act from the X Factor, in the short window they had as the UK’s premier boyband before Simon Cowell utilised his dark powers to create one that pandered even more to teenage girls. As detailed in the 2009 thread, they’d hit #1 with their first two singles, two fine if unremarkable songs that filled a decent radio friendly niche. ‘One Shot’, the third single released in early 2010, fell short as a post-album single, and so it was swiftly off to the US to record a follow-up album. This single was also bundled with their previous hits for American release as an EP so they could have an easy soft launch in the US, which went nowhere. While I suppose JLS were never meant to have long careers, I think the low quality of this sophomore single really started hastening their decline. ‘The Club Is Alive’ is really bad. It’s overloaded with autotune, and not in a fun, artsy way, more as if it were mere seconds away from exploding into a high-pitched insect whine. There are parts of it where genuinely it feels like they recorded it with a defect in the sound equipment and didn’t care enough to fix it up. Not that it would make any difference if the production was well handled, because the most damning thing about this song is the dull, lifeless way they approach the lyrics and particularly the chorus hook. The club is not alive, I do not feel from listening to this that it has ever been alive, and why are a band marketed at such a young audience talking about a girl in the club turning them on, anyway? I know I’m not expecting a high bar from either club songs or boy band crooners, but the lyrics here are godawful dreck for even that type of song. ‘Shorties all around but I’m focused on you’? ‘You could be the DJ, I could be the dancefloor’? It’s lifeless and I suspect indicative of them sniffing around a failed attempt at breaking the US. I’m obviously not a fan of this style of music, but there were hits around this time that managed to get the dancehall RnB right, and standing right next to those, JLS’ offering feels incredibly limp. It’s a bad effort for the genre, it’s a bad effort for even them, every other one of their singles is at least better than this, and mercifully it didn’t trouble the charts for long, dropping quickly off the top spot and selling nearly nothing afterwards, it sold 84,000 in its week at #1 and despite having nearly half the year after that, only made it to 241,000 by year’s end. Was a horrible idea to rip off The Sound Of Music for a club banger anyway.

2012 also has some really interesting songs, I'll be looking forward to seeing what you have to say about those - and similarly I haven't looked too deep into some of the more forgotten ones from other years so I have a few surprises.

36. Shout For England – Shout (feat. Dizzee Rascal & James Corden) 2 weeks at #1 (entered 19th June): 01-01-03-15-40-62-98 Kept off #1: Tinie Tempah (feat. Labrinth) – Frisky & K’Naan – Wavin’ Flag EOY #65 I almost don’t want to put this one up first as I already know I have so much I want to write about the abomination that is this song, or the cultural context it exists in, or whether it’d be better to save this a few weeks down the line when there’s an actual World Cup going on, or to lament about how much better it would be for this thread to be able to write about the two songs it kept off #1 instead. When there’s writing material I know I want to write about I’m happy to save it for later, while I’m still fresh. But don’t worry, this is me on normal mode, I won’t slow down and James Corden not playing ball (in several ways) isn’t going to stop me. There is no universe in which this isn’t finishing last though because it really is that bad. What is this horrendous Frankenstein of a song anyhow? Ostensibly released as a football song in the vein of ‘Three Lions’, ‘World In Motion’ and ‘We’re On The Ball’, it was an unofficial release for the England national football team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa that to its credit, at least was set up as a charity single for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Though, being for charity has never saved a song from criticism if it is bad, and they often are. It starts with a limp, lacklustre cover of Tears For Fears’ ‘Shout’, already a song far too downtempo, slow and sad to really serve as a proper anthem. To be honest I’ve never really cared for this as a song either, and its easily imitate-able chorus makes it excruciating whenever re-invented or remixed. It also then mixes in the football-like chants from Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’, because creating an original base was far too much work for the talented auteur James Corden. Who isn’t even the main artist on this one, that being the useless shadow entity ‘Shout For England’, which is just James and Dizzee under a name that only works for this song. Poor Tears For Fears. I know it’s popular to hate on Mr Corden, but here it's deserved, he really doesn’t add much to this song besides the knowledge that you’re joining a lifeless chant that would be outdone by most crowds you would come across at an actual football match. Which is to say, this song is not last because I am, as a member of a music forum, Vitamin-D-deficient, and likely to use the term ‘sportsball’ to show how much I don't care about sweaty men chasing balls around fields, nor am I too gay to care at all about sports battles. It’s last because I love a good football song to accompany my occasional enjoyment of football and this offensively bad nonsense is not only horrible to listen to, it kept one of the best footballing songs in a generation rising to #1 in a far more organic way. Tinie Tempah’s ‘Frisky’ was a very decent second single that in my recollection was most notable for its refrain ‘would you risk it for a chocolate biscuit’ which became a bit of a memetic phrase among people I knew at the time – it failing to get to #1 here did interrupt Mr Tempah’s streak, but for the long term, he had better. But no, the real crime was ‘Shout For England’ blocking the anthemic ‘Wavin’ Flag’, a World Cup related remix of Canadian-Somalian singer K’Naan’s song, turning it very respectfully from a song about longing for freedom for one’s people into also longing for freedom for one's people so you can wave your flag at an international football match. That’s a little flippant so please understand I really have nothing but love for it, one of the best football songs in history, certainly one of my all-time favourites (possibly just a little bit influenced by playing with it on the FIFA World Cup 2010 video game) and it seems a cruel joke even years on that the second week of a naff charity single blocked what would have been a pleasant surprise at #1, one that would be somewhere on the other end of this countdown had it surpassed ‘Shout’. The one slight bright point in 'Shout For England' is Dizzee Rascal attempting to rescue it with a bit of his usual flow, which works at a couple of moments, though I really think he phoned it comparatively in here (‘Come on England, we need to sort it out’, ‘leave the wags alone’), with nothing more than lyrics that owe far too much to Three Lions even as they try to reframe it as a unity line to come together and support the team – little tip for all future aspiring football song writers, if it’s still referencing the fact that we ain’t won anything then it’s still going to be creatively whiny, unsportsmanlike and indicative of our superior attitude to international football. Of course I could end up going into the fan relationship with the England national team at this point and how comparatively toxic it had gotten around 2010 with the national team regularly called disappointing for going out in major tournaments at the… quarter-finals, all the way up to not even qualifying for Euro 2008. History doesn’t help this song that 2010 was a tournament that again we didn’t do very well, in, in this instance losing out to a rather humiliating 4-1 defeat to Germany in the round of 16. All I will really say about this song’s relationship with the tournament is that Dizzee, as a rapper, has the option to namecheck specific players as he writes his flows and add in a bit of flair and tournament liveliness to this, the song for England at the 2010 World Cup. He chose a mere 4, a bit low, but fair if they’re top performers. 3 of these were Wayne Rooney, Aaron Lennon and Rio Ferdinand. Let’s have a look at those lyrics: We need Rooney in tip top condition Aaron Lennon down the wing like he's on a mission It ain't no superstition, its not a luck thing Rio Ferdinand nobody can f**k with him None of these three scored for England in the World Cup. Wayne Rooney was heard on camera saying ‘Nice to see your own fans booing you’ after a woeful 0-0 draw with Algeria a mere day before this song’s first chart week (how's that Come Together England spirit), and Rio Ferdinand was ruled out of the entire World Cup 5 days before this song was first released. Nobody even got a chance to f**k with him. Admittedly Steven Gerrard, also namechecked slightly later, did score a goal in the first few minutes of England's campaign against the USA. The team then failed to build on any of that, USA equalised, and we drew to the goddamn Americans. Yay. And they won our group, which contributed to our aforementioned drubbing by Germany. As a tournament song, it didn’t have longevity beyond the tournament, but this doesn’t even come back occasionally at times of new tournaments like many of the more classic football songs do, despite being a number #1 for two weeks unlike many of those. 'Three Lions' is getting played and talked about 1000 times more in 2026 than anyone remembering this critical disaster. I’ll end off this one, after talking for far too long about football, to say one thing. This version of the song isn’t on Apple Music. A version with slightly updated lyrics relating to the tournament of that year and actually better production was released with little fanfare two years later as ‘Shout 2012’ – it didn’t trouble the charts that time, thankfully, we’d all moved on - and that is the only edition available on Shout For England's profile. It is on Spotify, but I doubt those numbers have moved much in the last decade. 3.9 million now. I'd be surprised if it cracks 4 million by the end of this tournament.

We enter a new decade with this one but here are the previous entrants in this series, check them out if you missed them: 2000 by gooddelta 2001 by awardinary 2002 by Roba 2003 by Julian 2004 by Popchartfreak 2005 by Chez 2006 by Jade 2007 by Scene 2008 by Herbs 2009 by jimwatts

(real ones know the base image here is my profile background pic on Buzzjack, has certainly been this way ever since the new site, depicting a starry background and a character from one of the best TV anime airing solely during 2010, Angel Beats) Hello. It’s been some time since I dedicated a lot of writing to anything resembling charts on this forum, so I hope you’ll bear with me if I get any chart facts wrong – though I am also very happy to be corrected, as my philosophy goes in the politics forum, the truth matters above all else. What is also true and unassailable is my ranking of the 36, yes, THIRTY-SIX number ones of 2010; though contractually other rankings and opinions welcomed. I wouldn’t say these rankings are entirely unorthodox but certainly they will differ from how some people would rank them so please compare as I go along. So, 2010. The year of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Plastic Beach. The ArchAndroid. The Age Of Adz. Still A Sigure Virgin? (by Ling Tosite Sigure, check ‘em). The Suburbs. Body Talk if one has to throw a bone to Buzzjack faves. Incredible year, a classic, one might say. Oh. Yeah. This is not, in fact, Rate Your Music. Let’s go back to how I approached music in 2010, when I actually lived through it. In the world, the UK had had a split but all in all genial general election ('I agree with Nick') that led to what we in the biz call the ConDem Nation, The King's Speech film sold out audiences in the UK, at least two of this year's #1s are directly connected with real world events outside of the music-entertainment complex, the iPad and Instagram both get their starts, I watched Eurovision for the first time and there was a revolution in Kyrgyzstan. I was 16-17 in 2010, which makes it a very significant year for me, full of parties and confused adolescence in which the songs on Radio 1, and in the charts, played a huge role. I can remember specific moments in time accompanied by nearly all of these #1s from 2010, and many other big hits besides those, even half a life away. This was also the year where I unlocked a bit of a… special interest in the charts. This wouldn’t stay for long, I stopped following the charts regularly around 2014-15 and focused on other interests. But while it lasted, and it lasted long enough for me to join and lock on to a literal chart forum, I was listening to every song in the top 40, comparing recent chart runs on chart websites, keenly listening to the chart show to find out who was next up – and with such turnover at the top this was an exciting era. I love this year in music, it is very important to me as effectively ground zero of me being ‘conscious’, aware of the names of songs, how comparatively well songs performed commercially, which is just one step away from knowing how well they’re perceived critically. Though, and I will expand on why as we get to each song to prevent too many generalities, the lineup here is somewhat mixed in quality. One indication I will put in your mind, to go along with the images you may have in your mind of artists releasing transient knockoffs of their former hits or those with little discernible musical talent hitting the top spot, is that this was the first year in UK chart history that the year-end #1 was NOT a number one at any point during the week. Eminem and Rihanna's rather good collaboration 'Love The Way You Lie' was the year's biggest seller, yet never made it to the top of the weekly chart. Does that say more about its longevity or the lack of commercial staying power of songs on this list? We'll expand on that too. That said many good songs did still make it to #1 here. Even those that there are problems with, they still hold a specific and lovely nostalgic sound for me, and it won’t take long before we get to songs I enjoy hearing. I have a lot of very mixed feelings about most of these songs and if there is any message I want to deliver with this countdown, it’s that having things to criticise about a song does not mean it is completely devoid of merit. And as I type that, I am straining myself to not make a sly comment about the track that’s first up…

Just as with the Welsh elections, separate topic for the Scottish Parliament elections, also on Thursday. Here, the SNP have been governing with a power sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens, and polls suggest they, with their leader John Swinney, are set to likely continue according to the polls. Discuss the outcome of the vote and reactions, whether you live in or have a stake in Scotland or don't.

The Welsh elections will be happening at the same time as the local elections, but do deserve their own topic. The Senedd is increasing in size this year, going from 60 seats to 96, and a party list voting system is now in place. Eluned Morgan (Labour) is the current First Minister, although she and Labour are widely expected to lose control of the Senedd and quite badly, which is astonishing considering how much Labour have dominated Welsh politics for so long. Plaid Cymru and Reform are touted as the potential beneficiaries in a race to control the Senedd, discuss the Welsh elections and their outcomes later, whether you live in Wales or are just observing.

As expected, a fantastic top 2! I've gained more and more appreciation for 'Killing In The Name' over the years as I encounter it on occasion in a concert or party setting or just on my playlists, a moment whenever it shows up and a great reminder of the power of the (motivated) masses when we can get them together. That's a good point about the long arc of culture, how songs with many more days of continued existence and fandom can eventually show up the streaming chart and a song as good as this one from RATM does just build and build that sort of thing over time. I think personally I might have put Bulletproof at #1 out of this list* though Killing In The Name would have definitely been in the top 5. Actually: 1 La Roux - Bulletproof 2 Lily Allen - The Fear 3 Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name 4 Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West - Run This Town 5 Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You 6 Lady Gaga - Poker Face 7 Cascada - Evacuate The Dancefloor 8 Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone 9 Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden - Bonkers 10 Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis - Just Dance 11 David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland - When Love Takes Over 12 The Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow 13 The Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway 14 Tinchy Stryder feat. N-Dubz - Number 1 15 Tinchy Stryder feat. Amelle - Never Leave You 16 The Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling 17 Dizzee Rascal - Holiday 18 Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love 19 Pixie Lott - Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh) 20 JLS - Beat Again 21 Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart 22 Flo Rida feat. Ke$ha - Right Round 23 Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah 24 Alexandra Burke feat. Flo Rida - Bad Boys 25 David Guetta feat. Akon - Sexy Chick 26 Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band - The Official BBC Children In Need Medley 27 Chipmunk - Oopsy Daisy 28 JLS - Everybody In Love 29 Pixie Lott - Boys And Girls 30 Vanessa Jenkins and Bryn West feat. Sir Tom Jones and Robin Gibb - Barry Islands In The Stream 31 X Factor Finalists 2009 - You Are Not Alone ?? Joe McElderry - The Climb ?? Lady Gaga - Bad Romance that type shi anyway *no spoilers I'm sure Bad Romance will get all the love-in it deserves from everyone, I will admit it also gets better with age and certainly is one of Gaga's strong hitters, but that's all I shall say about that as as Julian says, I'll be kicking off the 2010s decade of this series with 2010, so keep an eye out for that one starting soon! Thanks for hosting this one Jim, some really impressive writeups throughout to cap off a very nostalgic year.

have been meaning to properly listen to Yorushika's new album (as a potential source), yass however song 2 is the one that immediately leaps out to me among the 4

apologies for long post I'm kind of catching up on weeks of not posting about politics filling myself with annoyances for reading UK politics subreddits too much for my own good: The 'perception of antisemitism' was one where they kinda nailed him, even though I get what he is saying (the media highlight these hate incidents and it creates heightened fear in the same way that people are fearful of terrorist attacks more generally even though the likelihood of such a thing happening is low, plus the media have incentives to attack the Greens), he's come up with a decent defense in that right-wing and pro-Israeli media whip up this fear of things like pro-Palestinian marches and one should not be fearful of such marches. But one area where I'd have hoped he'd recognise he'd need to be careful as he's been pretty savvy on most other things. The Times and Sky News have actually potentially even been antisemitic towards him (c.f. The Times cartoon depicting him using antisemitic tropes & Trevor Phillips minimising Zack's own identity). Calling out police brutality over the Golders Green attack was I think the right call and he shouldn't have apologised for it (and in actual fact his apology was more along the lines of bringing such retweets into a big public forum, one of the perils of his normal strength of being good online), and it was quite egregious for the Met Police to directly get involved in an election. I think it's one that'll get moved past as long as they recognise that all Green candidates are going to be scrutinised relentlessly even as they sort of handwave at many more Reform/Tory/Labour candidates also having scandals and he does need to ensure that certain elements who act as if they have the same views as the Iranian Ayatollah do not attach themselves to a wider Green movement. It has been concerning seeing some pro-Palestinian people treat Israel as a unique evil when really the only reason we are so disgusted with them in comparison to other insane governments engaged in conflicts like Sudan, Russia and Iran, is that our governments and political class are often supportive of Israel despite the horrors they inflict on people. Bots and right-wingers are really emboldened to post anti-Green nonsense on mainline subreddits though, I hope the Greens learn from this round and keep laser focus on economic issues, Rachael Millward was excellent on Question Time for this, see clip in below tweet, note that the biased commentary is completely nonsensical in that what you actually have here is an insecure racist trying to get a gotcha from Millward, she recognises this, doesn't take the bait and makes a point that I would have also made (yass!) that people feeling economically insecure is often a reason why they turn to hate and by fixing their economic insecurity we can hopefully lower the amount of racial hatred in society.

Zack's been really impressive in the run up to the local elections, getting out there, getting his name out there, even in spite of media putting their foot down to try and catch the Green Party and him out. Hope they have an excellent Thursday.

The politics of spite and indecency rearing its head again I see. Politicians should categorically not be able to treat an area differently because of the party allegiance of the MP that the people there elected am I going mad?!

Congratulations Zephyra Continuum, that's an excellent winner, 'Stuck' really stood out to me from first listen and I'm glad it resonated with everyone else to that extent - happy to have given it a good amount of points and contributed to it, all of my votes were so competitive this month and I am very pleased to see one of the stunners from that list triumph, congrats on the debut win too! Have just read all this through as the results were finishing, thanks for hosting Silas, I love how speedy and professional this was and thanks for taking on this month. Really pleased with another 13th place, thanks for giving me another nice hit, I'm still really enjoying this entry and thought it could do... about that as it happened lol. And another couple of 18s too, I love getting those and other big votes, but also good to see a nice steady stream of appreciation from many people across the board. also did amuse myself with having sent one of the shortest songs in the contest but ending up with my top 3 as some of the longest - I didn't expect 'lowmotion algae' or 'The Flood' to exactly set the scoreboard alight but they are both brilliant pieces of music and are far too low. As is 'Resonant Strings' tbh, not good to the top end of my votes. Decent results for 'Electrocommunion' and 'SURFACE TENSION' though and 'A Night At The Opera' and 'I LET MYSELF GO BLIND' smashing was excellent to see when reading through, plus 'Klouds Will Carry Me To Sleep' just making top 10, congrats on those placements guys, well deserved.

let's go, I don't have a clue who will triumph, there seems to have been no real consensus in the odds thread, so that in itself is rather exciting.

Oh afraid I cannot stand 'Sexy Chick' in the slightest, had forgotten it was still in but outside of nostalgia it's really naff. 'I Gotta Feeling' also in a way but there I can at least appreciate the anthemic moments back then of it appearing on the dancefloor. Though that said all of these are dancefloor classics in the... right frame of mind. Just I'd be gritting my teeth and pretending to like Guetta. Poker Face and I'm Not Alone have aged really gracefully in comparison though, wouldn't have particularly noted either in the past but they are really well put together as songs and are very fun #1s to listen to casually.

Doesn't really strike me as a radio song, and doesn't seem like an outlier for the BBC as much as they should be supporting entries more. If it's to have any success, it's the type of entry that pops well on the night. I'd be more concerned if when the rehearsals start the stage show looks lacklustre.

BBC NewsProtests may need to be stopped in some cases, Keir Starm...The PM tells the BBC he is concerned about the "cumulative" effect of marches on the Jewish community.Well that's chilling to see as the top story on the BBC.

Based solely on his diplomatic demeanour while hosting University Challenge, Amol could potentially get really far as a Faithful, excited to see him in. Leigh-Anne, Miranda, Joe Lycett, James Blunt, all potential for some good moments, decent lineup and from most of the rest of the names I am at least aware they are known if not familiar in every case with what they're known for so good job BBC

Sent the votes - really strong final, had a good list of commisserations and some absolutely incredible songs stealing all of my top spots

Depends. You're probably still registered at the old address but not certainly, if there was any sort of update of electors at that address then it would have taken you off - you won't have a poll card either. If you are on that list for this election, and I mean at the poll station if they see that you are on the list of eligible voters, then I believe there's no problem with voting, if you're on the list, but it's something you should sort out. ~ As I have covered all the local elections so far, and I don't want to diminish the Scottish and Welsh elections by bundling them in with the locals (new threads for these I think), nor could I realistically give any good preview on them, I'll say that that's the end of the previews. Briefly considered writing a mayoral preview but the only mayors up this time are the local mayors of London boroughs and that's really just a glorified leader of the council innit (London residents correct me). Though the Aspire guy from Tower Hamlets is running to be mayor there which is mildly interesting. Good time too as election forecasts are coming out: I would be surprised at something this making this big of a change, but that's one expectation to keep an eye on. BritainElects is slightly less out there but still big:

Bulletproof and The Fear are my favourite tracks by those two artists, very pleased to see them in the top 10, I especially like how quickfire, appropriately, Bulletproof sounds for a hit, you don't get that sort of raw energy from every chart topper and I always value it when it comes along. The Fear is just a very good introspective and lyrical track from Lily, I do like her but I often find her songs just a little bit on the wrong side of twee, but she manages to make those lyrical turns just sound powerful on The Fear which is really nice. though speaking of energy, Bonkers certainly has it and has it well, it's not that complex of a hit, just simple and awesome in its chorus. Such an excellent one to jump along to as you say.

District Council Electionsin which I get a little bit too much into the minutiae of elections, if I start talking about parish council elections someone ban me x My handy map creator doesn't even have these as separate, so best I can do is steal it from Wikipedia and point at the purple ones, you'll just have to imagine they have an incumbent party on them: These are the second-level councils that successive governments are desperately trying to do away with, as I found when growing up after the Cornish district council I lived in and was on murals suddenly didn't exist anymore. But they'll still, I believe, count for the overall council count that big news websites like to use, so any political parties looking for big rhetorical wins will still value taking control of some of these. They seem to also have a higher rate of being under no overall control (NOC), possibly because everything is so localist that candidates are generally known by people in their district - I know that when I've canvassed for district council elections before people on the doorstep knew the candidate personally. Though of course the same is quite often true for other council elections. The only district elections this cycle that have every seat up are two in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and South Cambridgeshire, and Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire. Both areas seem like places that may add to either the Conservative or Lib Dem count of councils. A number of places, Adur, Cheltenham, Fareham, Gosport, Hastings, Nuneaton & Bedworth and Oxford have half of their councillors up, and quite a lot of those councils are currently in NOC. The rest of them are in thirds, I won't list them, but if any of the purple places here are of interest to you, vote and/or keep an eye out on their composition before and after the election. Will spare you my forecasts for Brentwood and Three Rivers.