Labour – More Zonkyness

The Reform Effect

Jun 142026

So we have just had a few local elections here in the UK and Reform PLC have won quite a few elections and some councils are now under Reform PLC’s control. They have my sympathy; well the residents that is. Not much sympathy for the Reform PLC councillors although they might have to work harder than expected.

I don’t think Reform PLC was quite as successful as they would like to proclaim. According to the BBC, Reform PLC won 1453 councillors. Given there are 18645 councillors in the UK, Reform PLC won just a smidgen under 8% of the total. Of course not all councillors were up for election – just 5066 were up for election, so Reform PLC won around 28% of this.

Which is impressive but not quite world shaking. But look at the councils they’ve won control over – 14. Quite impressive but it’s all in the North or London. There’s nothing down south.

“Borrowed” from an anti-Reform Facebook group.

This is a kick in the teeth for Labour – not totally unexpectedly given the unrealistic expectations on a Labour government. The funny thing is that the Tories are also still being kicked – they’re down to controlling fewer and fewer councils. Loosing even though they’re not in government.

But enough about the election, what is the attraction of Reform PLC?

It is all too easy to categorise Reform PLC supporters as racist and thick. It is true that Reform PLC have an unusually high number of former representatives with a distinctly racist past and present. And Reform PLC supporters are well known for being somewhat lacking in educational attainment …

(Image borrowed from The Independent)

But it is all too easy to pain Reform PLC uniformly as racist thugs – there’s certainly some like that, but there’s more.

One of the things that comes up in the cesspool that is Twitter, is the “Uniparty” word. Which is a concept inherited from the US and warped to pretend there is no real difference between Conservatives and Labour.

I can certainly see their point – Labour is far too concerned with worrying the wealthy elites and the mainstream media which is one of the tools of the elites are far too willing to engage in sabotage of the current Labour government.

And if you look at where Reform PLC was strongest – the old Labour heartlands in the North, there is a significant factor – not enough has been done to mitigate the damage that Thatcher did to the old Northern industries in the 1980s. Promises have been made and broken.

So no wonder certain folk have the urge to destroy the current system – I’ve felt that way since Mad Maggie was in power in the 1980s myself. But Reform PLC is a con job.

A crafty one at that. Reform PLC takes genuine issues – housing shortage, wages not keeping up with inflation (to a small certain extent that’s the fault of the government’s freeze on tax bands), Islamic terrorism, etc. and blames it all on immigration. That is an unbelievably facile explanation for all the problems.

The problems are real – no mistake there – but the causes are a good deal more complex than just immigration whether legal, illegal , or asylum refugees.

But rather than criticise ReformPLC supporters for falling for the con, we should instead be congratulating them for recognising that something is broken, and come up with a better answer than ReformPLC’s.

Time To Drive The Knife Deeper Into The Tory Heart

Politics No Responses »

Jul 112024

A combination of Tory incompetence, mismanagement, the austerity fetish, and probably outright corruption has allowed us the electorate to drive a knife into the heart of the Tory beast. But the job is not over yet; the beast still lives if wounded.

The Tories may well thrust the knife in themselves with a variety of different groups moving the party to the right with the impression that the country is moving in the direction of ReformUK. Ignoring their traditional supporters.

But in case sanity returns by the time of the next election, we should be planning on finishing off the Tory beast. That doesn’t mean the right shouldn’t have a party – there is still a bunch who would vote for a centre-right party.

But the current Tory party itself is guilty of such atrocious mis-management that it deserves to die.

We need to demand electoral reform – getting rid of a government so miserable in performance and fractured in nature shouldn’t require tactical voting. People should be free to vote with their conscience and belief and to find the result reflects their vote in proportion to everyone else.

It is worth pointing out that the 2019 election result gave the Tories an 80 seat majority on 44% of the popular vote whereas the combination of Labour, Greens, and Liberals got 46% of the popular vote. How is giving the right-wing the government when a left-wing ‘coalition’ had a majority of the popular vote supposed to be fair?

And that was quite possibly the poorest result for the left of centre parties in recent times.

If we do not get electoral reform, we need to push tactical voting twice as hard – and drag old old stories of just how bad the Tories in government really were.

A long road to the gatehouse — Dover Castle Gateway

So Now We’re Talking About Proportional Representation

Politics No Responses »

Jul 062024

So various places are now filling up with articles whining about how if MPs were selected by the share of the vote, Labour would have gotten far fewer MPs and the minority parties (such as ReformUK whose voters seem particularly dumb) would have gotten more.

For example, Labour got 412 MPs with just 34% of the vote; if they had 34% of the MPs, they would have just 221 MPs which would require a coalition to obtain a majority. On the opposite side of the equation, ReformUK got 5 MPs (far too many!) with 14.3% of the vote which would have gotten them

But there’s two aspects to the unfairness of the results :-

We don’t have proportional representation. Labour doesn’t put that much effort into constituencies that are their safest seats or those they’ll never win. A win in a seat with a 20,000 majority is worth no more than a seat with a majority of 1. To a very great extent, sensible political parties have been practicing “tactical campaigning” for a very long time.
This election has probably seen more tactical voting than has ever been seen before – backed by a massive campaign, this has probably seen quite a few Labour voters (for example) voting for Liberal Democrats in constituencies where that makes the most sense to get rid of the Tories (and visa versa). So the share of the Labour vote is suppressed; probably a surprising amount.

That’s glossing over the fact that many supporters of smaller parties (such as the Greens) have been voting tactically for decades – I’ve often voted Labour when I’d rather vote Green.

You will see pretty pictures of what parliament would look like if MPs were allocated according to voter share – they’re all completely fictional. Voting would be quite different if we really allocated MPs according to the proportion of votes. So that kind of speculation is rather pointless.

But it does highlight the need for proportional representation.

The “Supermajority” Myth

Politics No Responses »

Jul 022024

The Tories (and occasionally others) are currently banging on about the dangers of a Labour “supermajority” without defining what it is.

Of course there is no such thing as a “supermajority” in the House of Commons – a vote passes (or fails) when it gets more votes in favour. Whether that vote gets a majority of one or 100 is irrelevant.

There is a danger with a huge majority though; a lesser danger than allowing the Tories to remain in government or even opposition. But a danger never the less.

A huge majority allows a government to pass laws with less risk than would otherwise be the case. Every so often we head of MP “rebellions” when MPs of the government’s party vote against that government’s wishes.

When a government wishes to pass a law that is on the extremes, they are more likely to encounter a rebellion. And a rebellion was more likely to succeed if the majority is slim.

Thus with an overwhelming majority, the government has a better chance of getting more extremist legislation through and into law.

Filthy Roaring Beasts Rushing Along The Scar

Is A New Tory Party Leader A Good Idea?

Politics No Responses »

Mar 172024

Well yes, the Tories need a new party leader to rebuild their party after the next election. Before the election? The new leader will just be a sacrificial lamb that’ll probably be thrown out onto the slag heap (hopefully a nice soggy wet one) at the next election.

It’ll almost certainly not save them from being wiped out (and that’s from 6 months ago; if anything, things are even worse today) at the next election.

An overwhelming majority of people want an election now and changing leaders now in what will be seen as yet another undemocratic move (it isn’t; it’s just people like to think they’re voting for a particular PM when they’re just voting for their MP) is likely to make the Tories even more unpopular.

If I were Starmer, I’d launch a parliamentary vote of no confidence as soon as the replacement showed up in parliament :-

The people don’t want you.
We don’t want you.
The other parties here don’t want you.
And if they were honest, half of those on your side don’t want you either.
– Me putting words in Starmer’s mouth.

He’d lose of course, but the people will see it as an honest attempt at doing the right thing.

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