General Election 2024

Fair enough - I was being sloppy with my language.

Conservative and reform took 40% of the popular vote. My point was that IMO is a high percentage of people voting against green policies, and while yes there’s technically a majority voting for parties with progressive green policies I don’t think that margin is sufficient for any government to start enacting “radical” change.

Persistent, methodical progress would be sensible where margins are thin. Unless you absolutely know that the results of step change will be quickly positive.

That didn't take long

I have just spoken over the phone with the BMA junior doctors committee, and I can announce that talks to end their industrial action will begin next week.

We promised during the campaign that we would begin negotiations as a matter of urgency, and that is what we are doing.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/statement-from-the-secretary-of-state-for-health-and-social-care

wow what a piece of shit!

I feel motivated to post on the subject of whether Starmer and his govt are transphobic.

As the parent of a trans child (who is now a trans adult), i have lived experience of CAMS, GIDS, The Tavistock and 6 years or so of gender dysphoria and potentially related (or potentially related) mental heath issues. It's important to note that whilst my own lived experience is valid, it does not make me an expert on trans issues, human rights, healthcare provision or anything else.

I don't think Starmer is transphobic.

There is mass hysteria on the issue from both sides of the debate, the majority of which is highly ill informed, even from a very cursory standard of understanding.

Personally, I don't believe that some of the hysteria on the pro trans side of the debate is actually helpful to trans people, but that's just a personal belief derived from my own experience. A lot of the rhetoric on the other side of the debate is just wrong / nasty / prejudice unveiled. However, this doesn't mean that it's helpful to demonise everyone (even if they are bigots) who has a view that isn't completely aligned to pro trans orthodoxy - that is not taking the moral high ground which is where the debate should be held, in my view.

I don't think Starmer is great but I do think he's better than what we have had, and I do think and fully expect that this govt will go some way to restoring dignity to people, and to debates which affect people in difficult circumstances.

These debates have been seriously debased over the last decade; it's time for us to get back to being adults who can tolerate ambiguity, can use reason, evidence and show compassion in public policy.

What about 50% of reform go to Tories, 25% to labour and 25% don't vote (or a more realistic split if you have it).

https://electionresults.parliament.uk/

I think you can get from the Isle of Wight to Berwick without passing through a Tory constituency.

The Devon thing is annoying as I need to go to Cornwall for family commitments so I can't avoid blue for the next 5 years. Probably would otherwise.

But they didn't. And also they wouldn't.
So that is completely pointless.

Apparently Bromley FC’s promotion ruins the clean sweep, but still…

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Starmer being pushed the day after the election on when things will be fixed. Don't remember Truss, BJ or Sunak having the same immediate grilling. 🤷

Thank you for sharing this

If every Reform voter had voted Tory the result would have been Con 303, Lab 268.

If we’re going to play this game you might as well add the Labour and the Lib Dem voters together, perhaps even the greens, there basically the same if this is your argument.

This has been widely polled by best for Britain. Just under a third of reform voters would go back to the Tory’s, 15% would go to Labour, Lib Dem’s and greens also collect single digits. Rest to other, Tommy ten names etc.

This sound argumentative, it is meant too.

Has this been resolved yet?

I think the opposite but only because of what's happened up here imo.

Presumably they got confused looking at the cartogram.

What is ‘piece of shit’ish about this? Genuine question.

If every Reform voter had voted Tory the result would have been Con 303, Lab 268.

This seems to be based on the very simplistic (and rather unlikely) assumption that all movement of votes was just from the Tories to Reform. That really doesn't seem to be the case. Labour took at least some votes from the Tories, Reform didn't just take votes from the Tories (some were from Labour) and so on and so on.

I thought that is the thing to do, call wes streeting a cunt, no reason

Would rep if could

Labour benefited from a pliable media, which spent the final week of the campaign running adulatory guff on Starmer’s ‘no drama’ style or ‘quiet radicalism’. His political mutations and embrace of plutocrats went unmentioned. Diminished in influence, the Murdoch papers half-heartedly half-endorsed Labour, partly hoping to forestall any resumption of the aborted second part of the Leveson Inquiry, but mostly just accepting the inevitable. The backgrounds of Labour candidates were hardly probed, yet alongside the strong representation of charities and NGOs, the lobbying industry practically has its own party grouping; it would be canny to bet on lobbying as the focus of the first scandal of the Starmer years.

from james butler in the LRB. feels like this could be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode egg in the face of the cravenly servile grifters journalists (like ian dunt and co) currently cooing about ‘serious grown up government’ and ‘a return to competence’. fully expect the press to become less accommodating than they have been very very quickly

the cravenly servile grifters journalists

For a sec I thought you meant owen jones! works both ways.

Doubt the ONS will have this ready for a few months yet.

They didn't offer to fix anything though

Oh look, the thinking man's Owen Jones being cited as a neutral source.

https://x.com/edhodgsoned/status/1809156389371068621?t=MD5mDnVI0q8PX7rmv29Mqg&s=19

Apparently he used this datasource (.csv)
https://github.com/inglesp/apogee/tree/main/data/processed