Qassändra

Considering Boris pulled out because he was down to 25 backers, it'd be surprising if that many suddenly decided they were that loyal to him.

He managed to get through what he wanted against the teachers' unions more than most of his predecessors did. Don't underestimate him.

But more opposing candidates spreads resources and spreads focus when they could be concentrated on one.

I think Fox, then Crabb, then Leadsom (who has a bizarrely big following among MPs), then Gove narrowly beating Theresa May in the members' vote after going full red meat.

I'm pretty sure you would call a 10 point lead fairly resounding were it in your favour. Nonetheless, the circumstances have changed.

He can actually mobilise our core vote in a way Corbyn can't - he's a fundamentally crap campaigner. I don't think Watson's an election winner. I do think he'd have been the difference between us losing by 200 seats and us losing by 100.

OMGove

God I'm so depressed. WHY ANGELA BLOODY EAGLE? It could literally only have been Tom Watson.

Poll of Tory members by YouGov finds Theresa May wins a run-off against Boris 55% to 38% :o

...what exactly has she backtracked on?

Except a large part of the case for Scotland to Remain in 2014 was the difficulty that would come with having to reapply for EU membership and the losses that would come from potentially losing EU membership. So shut up yourself.

30% of Labour voters went Leave. Somehow doubt 30% of our voters account for three quarters of our seats. But who does it make more sense to change our position to chase - 30% of our voters (who, lest we forget, were part of a 100% which wasn't enough to win last year), or 40% of Tory voters? Not all of that 40% are what you'd call 'ultra-wealthy true blue Tories'. Plenty who voted Remain are ordinary white-collar swing voters. It was a 52/48 result to Leave, not a 60/40 one - plenty of swing voters opted for Remain. Why not go for the SNP angle of mobilising that 48% behind us? A large chunk of that Leave vote is with Ukip forever now. It will be far easier to get more of the Remain vote behind one party than it will be to go running off the other way and abandon 70% of our voters for a Leave vote that will be far more diffuse.

I don't think there's been a single election where the winning side as breathtakingly went back on everything it said during the campaign in the space of few days as they have done here. At least the Liberal Democrats in 2010 had the reason of coalition negotiations for ditching most of their manifesto.

He would have been remembered as a prime minister who had in large part achieved most of his agenda in reforming public services and preserving the UK, its voting system, and its membership of the EU. As it is, this is so monumental a failure it's going to blot out anything else. Tony has Iraq, Eden had Suez, Cameron will have Brexit and the likely breakup of the UK.

Because there's more to the economy than a manufacturing sector that has been in long-term decline since the 1980s and the industrialisation of China. The economy was in a better position than it was in 2010, though I don't really think a great deal of that was down to anything actively done by Cameron. Of course, that's all irrelevant now this has happened.

59% support for independence in Scotland now, according to the Sunday Post.

I generally have the belief now that taking a high profile stance that more immigration is a bad thing de facto leads to more stigmatisation of immigrants in public, much as the person saying more immigration is bad can try to distance themselves from it. There's nothing new about it. But I think it's now too polarised for the party to ride two horses at once and keep its metropolitan London voters and its socially conservative voters. I think the party has to choose between pro-immigration and anti-immigration. Any halfway house on this one (like Ed's last year) just leaves both sides dissatisfied - the pros think Labour is being racist and dog-whistling and the antis think Labour can't be trusted on the promise. To be honest, if it wasn't for Sadiq at this point I'd just throw the whole towel in on the burning wreck of a party and join the SNP.

I think the argument she's trying to make is that Remain would've won if Corbyn had been more high-profile in campaigning to stay in (what with half of Labour voters not knowing the party's position on the referendum, etc), hence he's culpable for the result. I don't really think it's true though. I don't think anyone could've told most of the Leave voters in the North East how to vote.

Andy Burnham went fairly unambiguously for anti-immigration rhetoric during the leadership campaign. 'There are English workers who eat alone at work because they're the only ones who speak English', or 'there are houses of Polish people putting plumbers out of work'.

Nope. They want to replace him with one who's anti-immigration. The irony of finding myself neutral on him going.

The benefits of being the sole member of the EU in the UK probably outweighs the fall in the oil price in terms of GDP, so yes.

The amount of cash flooding out of the UK with everyone selling the pound is a sign of just how much the world wants to 'flood in' right now. You're taking control of a burning building.

Havering Council have too, and I'd be shocked if Thanet Council (which is Ukip-run) hadn't either.

I appreciate the worry, but given half of all Labour voters say they don't know what the party's official line on the referendum is, I think it's unlikely that many people will hear about small technical story like tis or have their minds changed by it.

I don't think they hold the ballot, they're just duly elected. An independent or fringe party will almost certainly run though.