Friday 3rd May 2019

[AnatolyKasparov]

Scores on the doors now Labour minus 86, Tories minus 855. With over 60 councils (mostly Tory "heartlands" where they are often tanking) still to declare.

[PorFavor]

The site is very slow today with the odd squirrel sighting.

[PorFavor]

Scores on the doors now Labour minus 86, Tories minus 855. With over 60 councils (mostly Tory "heartlands" where they are often tanking) still to declare.

Surrey Heath is apparently causing Conservative palpitations.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Scores on the doors now Labour minus 86, Tories minus 855. With over 60 councils (mostly Tory "heartlands" where they are often tanking) still to declare.

Surrey Heath is apparently causing Conservative palpitations.

That is one of the handful that they held onto in 1995

[citizenJA]

Labour’s Jamie Driscoll elected on second count at North of Tyne.

[citizenJA]

The site is very slow today with the odd squirrel sighting.

Same here

[AnatolyKasparov]

I'd add that Telford and Wrekin voted leave 63/37, and I know there are always all sorts of things going on, and all sorts of local issues, but here is a piece of evidence that suggests that, at the most, people are taking Labour's position on the future as they choose to. If Sunderland's labour party are saying the problem is labour contemplating a second referendum how does that work in Telford? That Telford's leave voters are happy that the policy isn't clear? That seems unlikely - I think Jess Phillips quote is a pretty good one

Bravery is needed. If you combine kindness and effectiveness with a bit of grit most people will respect you even when they don't always agree.

What this election might mean - might, early days - is that there are labour voters out there who are prepared to look again at the lib dems as an alternative in the way that they did before 2010.

Jess Phillips is usually wrong, and this is no exception. Labour can't just write off its sizeable minority of leave voters.

[adam]

West Norfolk DC - tory held since 2001 - last seat will decide if they retain control, going to second recount, said to be 3 votes in it.

[PorFavor]

Eric Pickles backs second referendum if parliament cannot reach agreement on Brexit (Politics Live, Guardian - 16.03)

[AnatolyKasparov]

51 councils still to declare, Tories now down 937. Looks like the "wildly improbable" 1000 seats loss could yet happen.

[PorFavor]

I can't bear to listen to Barry Gardiner, so I'll channel hop now.

[adam]

51 councils still to declare, Tories now down 937. Looks like the "wildly improbable" 1000 seats loss could yet happen.

I can see the headlines now - 'Disaster for Labour'.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Lab lose Middlesbrough

Not a massive shock given the mayoral result there.

Mansfield now on second recount of their mayoral vote.

Labour gain from Independent, by a handful of votes!

[PorFavor]

Echoes of Jess Phillips -

Corbyn needs to offer more clarity on Brexit, says former Bolsover council leader[Ann Syrett] after Labour loses control

Syrett, who did not contest the election, was asked if she had a message for Corbyn. She said voters needed more clarity on Brexit. She said:

All I can say to him is that we really need more information, we need a very definite lead from him, whatever it is on Brexit, he’s got to tell us.

You can live with anything if it’s certain. At the moment, everyone is living with uncertainty. I think that’s what’s hit this. (Politics Live, Guardian - my emphasis)

[PorFavor]

Cons -991, Lab -108.

[Willow904]

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Interesting graph here, showing different stories in different regions.

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[RogerOThornhill]

Andrew Neil
@afneil
When the Tories said they could lose 1,000 seats, that was expectations management. They've now lost over 1,000 seats. Overnight was not bad for the Tories. The day has been a bloodbath.

[Willow904]

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Corbyn: "a deal has to be done" .

Abbott lead with the need for a GE when I saw her earlier.

I'm honestly not sure which is the least unlikely. A deal is nigh on impossible with this Parliament and an election deeply unattractive to the Tories on the back of these elections. We're pretty stuck.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Jess Phillips is usually wrong, and this is no exception. Labour can't just write off its sizeable minority of leave voters.

I don't think anyone's suggesting they write them off, just stop pandering to them. Labour's two faced cowardly fence sitting can't continue, watching Barry Gardiner last night was excrutiating even for him, one minute he was saying Labour was a party for remainers then the next that they had to deliver brexit. It was cognitive dissonance in action and I'd rather listen to Jess Phillips than a fool like him.

I appreciate Labour are in a difficult position, but prevarication and avoidance are rarely the answer to anything, people will inevitably lose patience and sympathy.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Corbyn:

I think it means there’s a huge impetus on every MP, and they’ve all got that message, whether they themselves are leave or remain, or the people across the country, that an arrangement has to be made, a deal has to be done, parliament has to resolve this issue - I think that is very, very clear.

The problem is Jeremy is it's not very, very clear though is it? The big winners from these elections have been the Lib-Dems and the Greens who at least do have the courage to be very, very clear about brexit. Perhaps that's a lesson to take? That people will vote for you if you're honest with them? Wasn't that supposed to be your selling point? It all seems so long ago now.

[PorFavor]

I'm a bit disappointed that the Conservatives didn't lose Surrey Heath. They hung on by a thread.

[Willow904]

Jess Phillips is usually wrong, and this is no exception. Labour can't just write off its sizeable minority of leave voters.

I don't think anyone's suggesting they write them off, just stop pandering to them. Labour's two faced cowardly fence sitting can't continue, watching Barry Gardiner last night was excrutiating even for him, one minute he was saying Labour was a party for remainers then the next that they had to deliver brexit. It was cognitive dissonance in action and I'd rather listen to Jess Phillips than a fool like him.

I appreciate Labour are in a difficult position, but prevarication and avoidance are rarely the answer to anything, people will inevitably lose patience and sympathy.

This is where I think Abbott's response was better than Corbyn's. She emphasised the need for a GE, and we really do need one, democratically speaking, to break the impasse and provide a clear mandate for a type of Brexit, something we haven't previously had. She then went on to say, barring a GE, Labour would consider whatever the government put forward - ie. Labour aren't in charge, May is. I'm afraid Corbyn made it sound way too much like this is a failure of politics and politicians in general, rather than an epic Tory administrative fail. It adds fuel to the "plague on all their houses" fire that saw so many independents elected yesterday. His remarks would be spot on if addressed to MPs, but maybe not the best image to be presenting to the public of a failing parliament.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

From Labour's Lucy Powell:

It’s a very big mistake to equate Lib Dem votes = pro-Remain. In some places it does, in others it’s a protest vote (at lack of progress with Brexit).

Hmmm yes Lucy, I'm sure you'd say the same about the Greens, and while I don't dispute some brexiters could have been stupid enough to vote for parties diametrically opposed to their views as a protest, has it not occured to you lots of remainers live in leave seats? Enough indeed to win those seats? Perhaps if you'd tried appealing to them you wouldn't have be clutching at quite so many straws.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

So I can't comment on the national picture, but I can on Kirklees.

Labour I think lost four seats, three to LibDem and one to Ind. Labour gained two at the expense of the Tories.

If you wanted to interpret this through a Brexit lens, you would conclude that Labour is slightly too pro-Remain. It picked up seats in the Remain voting Colne Valley and lost them in the Leave areas.

I don't believe this is a useful interpretation. But the opposite, that Labour is too pro-Leave, is even less plausible here in Huddersfield.

[citizenJA]

I'm going to rest now. You're all wonderful commentators, you know. The best.
love,
cJA

[PaulfromYorkshire]

So all the declarations are in. I see Labour's worst losses were in a band a bit south of Hadrian's Wall and including Kasparov territory.

Beyond that the Tories have been hammered in the shires. My instincts are this is not much to do with Brexit and everything to do with austerity.

Struggling schools, shambolic social care, bus routes axed, potholes, failing town centres. Folk are cross about these things and if you have a Tory council it's fairly obvious which party is to blame.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Both the Mail have headlines "will they [the two main parties] listen?".

Of course the message they should hear is completely different from one to the other.

[PorFavor]

I'm very irritated by the frequent shots of the spoilt ballot papers and the messages scrawled thereon (traitor etc etc). I know that there are always a few people who deliberately submit spoilt papers but this rash of them (which appear to be mostly concentrated in particular areas) are surely, in the main, a result of a ("Brexit" or UKIP) planned party political tactic and not independent voter reaction. As the media well knows.

[PorFavor]

Night night.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Well I think I've criticised Labour quite enough, I mean they had a bad night and I think rightly so but holy sweet mother of god the Tories have lost 1,351 seats.

Just writing that brings a broad grin to my face, such a pleasingly high number of arseholes losing their jobs and positions of power and authority all at once is a rare thing and should be savoured. I bet a lot of them had been in those jobs for decades and never imagined the public would have the temerity to vote them out. And now it's all gone. All the free meals and drinks, the free trips abroad, all the backhanders with nods and winks to mates who just happened to be property developers, all the influence, all the swagger, all the things that make being a Tory fun. All of it gone.

They'll be crying into their drinks in the golf clubs of the shires tonight.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I'm very irritated by the frequent shots of the spoilt ballot papers and the messages scrawled thereon (traitor etc etc). I know that there are always a few people who deliberately submit spoilt papers but this rash of them (which appear to be mostly concentrated in particular areas) are surely, in the main, a result of a ("Brexit" or UKIP) planned party political tactic and not independent voter reaction. As the media well knows.

Well quite. The unfailingly repulsive Suzanne Evans just tried to claim on Newsnight that it was the spoilt ballots that were the most important thing about last night's elections, it was quite evidently organised and encouraged to allow creatures such as her to sneer at the entire democratic process and say 'people didn't want to vote for politicians' when millions of people had just voted for thousands of politicians. The rest of the panel just sniggered a bit at her nonsense and moved on.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ok this is my final dig at Labour for the night, I promise.

It really did bug me that Peter Kyle, who's on my side as it were, just blithely came out with a load of simplistic nonsense on Newsnight about Labour losing votes to remainers in the South and leavers in the North. Just said it as if it were an axiomatic fact without a second's thought.

Now I do believe most of us here are of a Northerly persuasion. I for one regard myself to be living in the South because buying a Scotch pie in Leeds is impossible.There used to be a really good Scottish butcher in Kirkgate market, quite expensive but worth it, he went years ago though, most of the place is full of cheap tat now sadly. Apparently you have to pronounce it 'Kirgut' to sound proper Leeds. Which curiously doesn't apply to other places with Kirk or Gate in their names as far as I can tell. Nobody calls Crossgates 'Crossguts' for example. Anyway what was I on about? Oh yeah we Northerners being lumped together as brexit fanatics.

Obviously I don't need to tell you that we aren't, that it's mind bendingly complex. Just look at Pudsey, a place I know well. That petition to revoke article 50 was signed by more people in Pudsey than any other area of Leeds outside Leeds North East and West (the two most remain voting areas of the city) and yet they voted for the Tories last night. In fact looking at it far more people signed that petition than voted for their new Conservative Cllr which is a tad frustrating. And yet just next door Labour took control of Calderdale council. Which would include Queensbury, where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and racism.

Nothing is simple up here, as I'm sure nothing is simple down there and yet despite people in Sunderland and Barnsley and Sheffield voting Lid-Dem and Green it appears this simplistic narrative must continue.

[HindleA]

Still have parish,only because of uncontested. "Oasis" in a sea of blue.

[HindleA]

Personally I don't particularly give a toss about the relative losses and the media presentation,that is grasping at straws .Labour's performance was woeful.They lost 7-0,we only lost 1-0, is childish diversion.

[HindleA]

Not quite a sea of blue,Chez remained Labour with some Libdem's resurgence but no Tory.