Friday 5th April 2017

[adam]

conservatives have gained about 8 seats from Labour in Derbyshire so far. Labour certainly on course to lose control

Looks like Cons on course to take overall control - on 27 with 15 to declare, need 33 for majority.

[adam]

West Mids mayor turnout 26.6%, higher than expected.

[NonOxCol]

I've kept quiet for the duration of the local election campaigns. Now they're done. Jeremy Corbyn must go. I know there's the argument about who will replace him - but if he says he'll go, perhaps that will open up a path for potential successors.

Breaking: PF comes out as member of far-right.

[TechnicalEphemera]

I've kept quiet for the duration of the local election campaigns. Now they're done. Jeremy Corbyn must go. I know there's the argument about who will replace him - but if he says he'll go, perhaps that will open up a path for potential successors.

If he stepped down now (he won't) I am not sure there is a mechanism to appoint a caretaker. Watson would be defacto leader, but while he is better than Corbyn, he isn't the face of a credible PM. Maybe the NEC could invoke an emergency procedure but I wouldn't know what.

In part this is why Corbyn didn't block the GE, if he had Labour would have had a small window to sort this out.

[TechnicalEphemera]

I've kept quiet for the duration of the local election campaigns. Now they're done. Jeremy Corbyn must go. I know there's the argument about who will replace him - but if he says he'll go, perhaps that will open up a path for potential successors.

Breaking: PF comes out as member of far-right.

Red Tory, or some such appropriate insult. Join the rest of the buggers over there in the polling booth, where they are staging a hard coup.

[adam]

Simon 4000ish ahead after first declaration - Coventry. Lib Dems and Greens both out-polled UKIP.

[adam]

Simon 4000ish ahead after first declaration - Coventry. Lib Dems and Greens both out-polled UKIP.

c8000 ahead after Wolvo added.

[seeingclearly]

Happy to exchange pedantries. You mean the latent tendencies within the tory party and their supporters has gone mainstream? It never wasn't there..... but these days anyone can say anything, no constraints on anything left.

Well yes and no. I don't disagree with you, but I meant that a lot of UKIPs extreme views - even discounting their core ideas about Europe for the moment - are just being expressed by the Conservatives.

There is an old line that one reason the far right - then mainly in their National Front iteration - disappeared at the end of the 70s was that the Conservative party gave them everything they wanted and they all joined them. Mark Steele argues angrily against the simplicity of this, saying it completely discounts a wide popular movement against the far right.

I think there is very little doubt that UKIP's vote has collapsed because (1) they've achieved their core aims and (2) their ideas are being well expressed by the Conservatives.

The trouble, which Hugo has said somewhere on here today, is that if UKIP built their vote from Conservative and Labour supporters (and others) around the country, that vote does not seem to be going back to Labour as it leaves UKIP. Labour abandoned the right thing about Europe in part at least because of a fear of turning off leave voters - but they've lost them anyway. What was the point?

(Yesterday I saw a conversation about dolls. Dolls, ffs. Apparently if you say there should be black dolls, meaning ones to represent ethic diversity, that is racist. All in the name of freedom of speech, dontcha know.) And other such stupidities. Lunatics, asylum, etc., and I am not referring to migrants.

There does seem to have been a huge cultural change which has led to the idea that it is offensive to accuse somebody of racism. Ed Stourton's book 'It's A PC World' is a very good read on some of the background to this (it is absolutely not the book you fear it might be from the title).

Lets be clear, this was a well known local black celebrity advocating for more representation of diversity in childrens toys. SHE wasn't making any claims of racism, she was being accused of it! On a day like today you might think that is trivial, but with a forthcoming general election that promises to entrench and legitimise such sentiments It seems relevent to me. You say it went away in the 70s, I returned around then and it was certainly percolating inside the steeltoe docs I saw, a big transition, I think. Around ten years ago the BNP were on the rise, many migrated to UKIP who have shamefully been fed and watered by the tories. I know a lot here are against the more overtly left in the Labour party, but it is, imo, exactly why the Labour party needs to stand firm on its ideals, they mean something, not just for Labour, but for everyone who ever believed and stood for social progress. My quibble has never been with the personalities in Labour, but with the human values they represent, and whether they hold firm on those.

It may not be possible to win the battle, but, by everything I believe in, we have to hold firm to believing we will win the war.

Last year we saw a good, fairminded and decent mp killed for her beliefs.
And now we have a PM who shouts out with the same sort of shit.
It felt like it was on its way then, a decade ago. And here we are.

But most people were still thinking it was personalities. And today some of you seem a little surprised. I don't get that, at all. But then I never got why and how we got tories in 2010, and just wondered why people forgot so easily.

There has been a quiet slow holodomor happening for years now, and a population that is either in denial or simply doesn't care. It is all normalised. We read posts about various aspects of it here daily, and the ones who understand what it actually means and understand why the lines are drawn as they are often disregarded. Well, I for one won't be normalised, and will dissent as long as I have breath, because this is what Britain has come to. And am completely unsurprised by the events of the last few weeks. If you value your home you should hope it will escalate into true visibility very fasr in the next few weeks. Really there is no time now for division. Given our now, how do you feel about next years tomorrows, Or 2020's and 2022's. That btw, is NOT attributable to Corbyn, if it weren't him, it would be someone else, at least he has some personal resilience.

[adam]

On a day like today you might think that is trivial,

I have no idea where you get that from. I don't think that in any way at all.

You say it went away in the 70s,

No. I said it found expression in the conservative party at the end of the 70s, as UKIP's poisonous ideas are finding expression in the conservative party now.

[adam]

Cons have won Derbyshire - 15 gains so far (2 from lib dem, rest from labour, labour also lost one to lib dem). 6 still to declare but Con are over the line already.

[adam]

Significant catch up for Street after walsall results. Now Simon ahead by about 1000

[AnatolyKasparov]

UKIP wipe out is good news but is tempered by the fact their philosophy is well represented in the Government!

A good case can be made that Farage is the most successful modern politician.

Which is sad

It is, but it is also arguably strong evidence that winning elections isn't the be all and end all. How many Westminster contests has he lost again?

Maybe the ultimate greatest flaw of New Labour was becoming almost totally fixated on the "how" of gaining power, and pretty much forgetting the "why".

[adam]

Conservatives just ahead after first round in Teesside mayoral contest.

[RogerOThornhill]

Helen Pidd‏Verified account @helenpidd 7m7 minutes ago
More
It's looking like an Andy Burnham landslide in Greater Manchester - from the counting piles he may well have over 50% of the vote.

[adam]

Conservatives just ahead after first round in Teesside mayoral contest.

Labour hold 5 out of the 6 parliamentary seats here and had a combined net majority of over 30,000 over their nearest rivals seat by seat.

[adam]

Simon lead back up to c15,000 after Sandwell result (on my maths - the page I'm looking at suggests he's about 20,000 up, I may have missed a result.)

[adam]

And +20.000 to Simon's lead after Birmingham. Looking very good but not there yet.

ignore this - i think that's a cumulative total with a misleading heading.

Edited again to add - but it is looking very promising.

[seeingclearly]

On a day like today you might think that is trivial,

I have no idea where you get that from. I don't think that in any way at all.

You say it went away in the 70s,

No. I said it found expression in the conservative party at the end of the 70s, as UKIP's poisonous ideas are finding expression in the conservative party now.

I am not being personal to your comments, Adam. I was responding to the conversation.

And I know that there are those who would find me mentioning what I regard as a kind of sea change, i.e. the reversal of what pc actually was, and how it is now being applied to invalidate the left, as was it nonoxfordcol said. So on the day we are watching the end results, maybe dolls seem irrelevant.

I was in fact saying those poisonous ideas have long been present and nurtured by the tory party. They just use others as their street fighters. What they are doing now is being overt in THEIR expression of it. There is plenty of historic evidence for this, and the last ten years ought to have convinced people here of that. BBC and media support. Refusal to challege it. Reaping the electoral rewards and playing on them. And more recently the utter craziness of Mays' election announcement in Parliament, when all parties but the one that has deformed British politics most were classed as saboteurs. But Cameron was not innocent of this, he was the enabler of it from his earliest time as opposition leader. As some said this morning, it has been a decade now.

'You' can be used rhetorically, though I was not wishing to use rhetoric, but just to say it isn't really in Labours hands, and hasn't been since Blairs time, it (the far right tendency) wasn't transformed safely by being absorbed and dealt with by a mainstream party, it was normalised and inflamed repeatedly to suit that partys ambitions and at Labours expense for years.

And they in their turn have to accept some blame for not remaining the broad church they and this country used to represent, and instead moving to become more similar to everything we once despised for the narrow view it represented.

Frankly ditching Corbyn now is would be a betrayal of millions of right minded people who do care about these things. Because there is no successor. Unless of course somebody took the initiative to rehabilitate Ed Miliband, as a natural successor and a man of conscience too.

(I held my nose yesterday and voted Labour, because I felt more was at stake than a mayoralty that no one here wanted in the first place. We rejected it and were ignored. I am no liker of Tom Watson and his pals, but needs must when there is so much to lose. All this American "town hall' stuff is not useful. It is a way of shrinking democracy. Those who shout loudest and so on.)

[adam]

And +20.000 to Simon's lead after Birmingham. Looking very good but not there yet.

ignore this - i think that's a cumulative total with a misleading heading.

Edited again to add - but it is looking very promising.

RIGHT

I THINK that he was about 15,000 up before Brum result but won Brum by about 20,000 so I think he's about 35,000 up.

[adam]

Conservatives just ahead after first round in Teesside mayoral contest.

Labour hold 5 out of the 6 parliamentary seats here and had a combined net majority of over 30,000 over their nearest rivals seat by seat.

In a world gone a little bit mad, the Conservative candidate here seems to be claiming that he's done so well because of his plans to nationalise the local airport.

[adam]

Simon adds another 15,000 to his lead after Dudley

Edit - don't know where I got this from, very wrong. Unlikely to try liveblogging results again. 'Enjoy' it while you can.

[adam]

Street pulls 29,000 back in Solihull

[RogerOThornhill]

To the surprise of no-one...

Mirror Politics‏Verified account @MirrorPolitics 11m11 minutes ago
More
Labour's Steve Rotherham wins Liverpool metro mayor

[adam]

Okay -so I managed to miss at least one or read it wrong so ACTUALLY this is much less good news than it looked and Street pulled back about 44,000 votes in Solihull and Dudley and so wins the first round - can't see an actual final figure yet.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Helen Pidd‏Verified account @helenpidd 7m7 minutes ago
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It's looking like an Andy Burnham landslide in Greater Manchester - from the counting piles he may well have over 50% of the vote.

Good for him, its the least he deserves.

[RogerOThornhill]

This is hardly a surprise either.

NumbrCrunchrPolitics‏
@NCPoliticsUK

Follow
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UKIP wins first 2017 seat in former BNP heartland of Burnley. UKIP now tied with the Cornish nationalists for 8th largest party in England.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Of course, neighbouring Pendle has the last remaining BNP councillor in the UK.

[adam]

Conservative Houchen pulling ahead with second preferences in Teesside.

(I know. Ignore me, it's probably wrong.) (At least I can spell Teesside.)

Edit - doesn't deserve a new post - Conservative win Teesside mayoralty.

[pk1]

BBC reporting Projected National Share for 2017 (changes since 2015)

Cons 38% (+3)
Lab 27% (-2)
LD 18% (+7)
Ukip 5% (-8)
Others 12% (nc)

[adam]

Street about 6,000 ahead after first preferences in West Mids - about 1 percentage point ahead. No, really.

[pk1]

@yahyah

Good to 'see' you

[pk1]

Do hope there are GE candidates lined up for Steve Rotheram & Andy Burnham's seats.

[Willow904]

This is not good. Decent local government can be a real defence against the worst excesses of a central government. With control of vast regions under individual Metro Mayors, implementation of central Tory policy becomes much more efficient and difficult to fight.

Edited to add - comment in response to this:

Tories win Tees Valley mayoral contest

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... land-wales" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not expected, I believe?

[TechnicalEphemera]

Do hope there are GE candidates lined up for Steve Rotheram & Andy Burnham's seats.

Steve was holding out, he wanted Anderson to get it and the NEC wanted to impose Len's mate. Don't know how that went.

Burnhams seat has a good local candidate.

[TechnicalEphemera]

This is not good. Decent local government can be a real defence against the worst excesses of a central government. With control of vast regions under individual Metro Mayors, implementation of central Tory policy becomes much more efficient and difficult to fight.

Edited to add - comment in response to this:

Tories win Tees Valley mayoral contest

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... land-wales" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not expected, I believe?

What comes after catastrophic in the lexicon of electoral performances?

[Willow904]

Labour’s Sue Jeffrey was the only woman seen as having a good chance of being elected as a metro mayor. As Susanna Rustin argued in a Guardian article earlier this week, the introduction of a mayoral system in local government has been “disastrous for women’s representation”.

It's a real shame.

[adam]

This is not good. Decent local government can be a real defence against the worst excesses of a central government. With control of vast regions under individual Metro Mayors, implementation of central Tory policy becomes much more efficient and difficult to fight.

Edited to add - comment in response to this:

Tories win Tees Valley mayoral contest

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... land-wales" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not expected, I believe?

What comes after catastrophic in the lexicon of electoral performances?

Middlesbrough?

(runs and hides)

[Willow904]

This is not good. Decent local government can be a real defence against the worst excesses of a central government. With control of vast regions under individual Metro Mayors, implementation of central Tory policy becomes much more efficient and difficult to fight.

Edited to add - comment in response to this:

Tories win Tees Valley mayoral contest

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... land-wales" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not expected, I believe?

What comes after catastrophic in the lexicon of electoral performances?

Well I did comment above that Labour only really holding steady in pro-Remain Bristol didn't especially auger well for leave voting areas. I can't help wondering, too, if the calling of the general election has shaped some outcomes, making these locals more about Brexit than they would have been and thus tipping them in the Tories' favour. Because in that context, Labour and the Libdems really didn't do themselves any favours by allowing Theresa May to call one unopposed.

[adam]

These are the first round votes awaiting second preference redistribution in the west mids

Nielsen (LD) 30,378
Durnell (UKIP) 29,051
Burn (Gn) 24,260
Stevenson (Com) 5,696

Very unscientifically, I would guess that it has proved very difficult for people to come from behind and win on second preferences, and the assumptions you think you can make about where second preference votes might go are often not met.

Edited to add - express and star says final result expected about 6pm. Could become obvious long before then.

Editing the edit to add -

Screen Shot 2017-05-05 at 15.10.42.png (69.17 KiB) Viewed 7700 times

[SpinningHugo]

UKIP wipe out is good news but is tempered by the fact their philosophy is well represented in the Government!

A good case can be made that Farage is the most successful modern politician.

Which is sad

It is, but it is also arguably strong evidence that winning elections isn't the be all and end all. How many Westminster contests has he lost again?

Maybe the ultimate greatest flaw of New Labour was becoming almost totally fixated on the "how" of gaining power, and pretty much forgetting the "why".

I think that is daft, and indeed insulting.

Even if the only point of the last Labour government had been to keep the Tories out (it wasn't) that would have sufficed.

[SpinningHugo]

@yahyah

Good to 'see' you

Ditto. Had been concerned.

[SpinningHugo]

Helen Pidd‏Verified account @helenpidd 7m7 minutes ago
More
It's looking like an Andy Burnham landslide in Greater Manchester - from the counting piles he may well have over 50% of the vote.

Good for him, its the least he deserves.

Yes. I really dont see this.

Andy "riots on the streets, posh coffee" Burnham and his new found love of the Stone Roses seems to me to reflect much of what is wrong with Labour (outside Corbyn).

[TechnicalEphemera]

Yes. I really dont see this.

Andy "riots on the streets, posh coffee" Burnham and his new found love of the Stone Roses seems to me to reflect much of what is wrong with Labour (outside Corbyn).

Good in government, good on Hillsborough. He just lacked bravery at key points. He should have told Harman to piss off.

[SpinningHugo]

Yes. I really dont see this.

Andy "riots on the streets, posh coffee" Burnham and his new found love of the Stone Roses seems to me to reflect much of what is wrong with Labour (outside Corbyn).

Good in government, good on Hillsborough. He just lacked bravery at key points. He should have told Harman to piss off.

Was he *really* good in government? What were his memorable initiatives?

And Hillsborough I am slightly sceptical about. We've known the truth since Taylor essentially, and that was in 1990. Taylor has been dead 20 years. It was a bit like the Bloody Sunday enquiry, cathartic but told us nothing new. The early campaigners were heroic. Burnham not so much.

And he never was going to reject Harman's approach. He was a member of Progress. A Blairite under Blair, a Brownie under Brown, and a loyalist under Corbyn.

An opportunist with no real commitments.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Yes. I really dont see this.

Andy "riots on the streets, posh coffee" Burnham and his new found love of the Stone Roses seems to me to reflect much of what is wrong with Labour (outside Corbyn).

Good in government, good on Hillsborough. He just lacked bravery at key points. He should have told Harman to piss off.

Was he *really* good in government? What were his memorable initiatives?

And Hillsborough I am slightly sceptical about. We've known the truth since Taylor essentially, and that was in 1990. Taylor has been dead 20 years. It was a bit like the Bloody Sunday enquiry, cathartic but told us nothing new. The early campaigners were heroic. Burnham not so much.

And he never was going to reject Harman's approach. He was a member of Progress. A Blairite under Blair, a Brownie under Brown, and a loyalist under Corbyn.

An opportunist with no real commitments.

Multiple people I know who are non political were pretty complementary about his performance on the NHS, despite the risible efforts of a certain JB to smear him.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... top-tories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Lib Dems’ failure to surge makes voting Labour on 8 June more vital

Abi Wilkinson

Right let's get on with it!

[citizenJA]

I can't help wondering, too, if the calling of the general election has shaped some outcomes, making these locals more about Brexit than they would have been and thus tipping them in the Tories' favour. Because in that context, Labour and the Libdems really didn't do themselves any favours by allowing Theresa May to call one unopposed.

(cJA edit)

Yes, it most certainly did help out Tories and opposition parties ought to have been aware of it
I'm back in from a day out and about - people unaware of yesterday's local elections
Tories like that fine

[citizenJA]

What’s the Tories’ plan to clean up air pollution? Hold your breath until 2050

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... old-breath" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tory-UKIP policy right there

[pk1]

Multiple people I know who are non political were pretty complementary about his performance on the NHS, despite the risible efforts of a certain JB to smear him.

Despite the shocking state of the NHS in the last few years, JB has been totally silent which suggests her sole purpose may well have been primarily political. Additionally, a nice shiny medal suggested by the Cons & awarded by Her Maj helped to ignore the reality of the Cons 'care' of the NHS

[citizenJA]

The government’s new plan to tackle the UK’s toxic air crisis is “much weaker than hoped for”, according to the environmental lawyers that forced ministers to deliver the proposals.

James Thornton, chief executive of ClientEarth, said the government was “passing the buck” to local authorities and said he failed to see how the central proposal – clean air zones for urban areas – would be effective without charges to deter the most polluting vehicles.

Ministers were forced to act after a series of humiliating defeats in the courts, which ruled previous plans illegal. ClientEarth is now examining the latest plan and could go back to court again if it decides the measures will not reduce illegal levels of air pollution in the “shortest possible time”, as the law demands.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... n-air-plan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People with multiple homes in different regions or countries and independent wealth might be okay voting Tory/UKIP but not long-term. No one is responsibly represented or led by that party.