Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

I’ve waited until the polls have closed to say that @Keir_Starmer has refused to sign Unite’s letter demanding an end to fire & rehire.

It says so much. Disgraceful.

Show some passion. Talk for workers. It’s pathetic.

— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) May 6, 2021

Cooper had a very good record at DWP - if you'd call a "good record" directly causing thousands of disabled people to end up dead. absolute fucking scum.

"Keir has always been honest"

remind me again of how many of the pledges this hollow facile piece of fucking shit shortarsed fucking clown actually didn't renege on within weeks of winning the leadership election again

Oh this thread though

4/ I’m told by Labour sources that the decision to press ahead with the by-election was done by Jenny (now Baroness) Chapman, the top political advisor to Keir Starmer.

She knows the Tees area as previously MP for Darlington for 9 years until 2019.

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) May 6, 2021

Last one, terrible terrible stuff

11/

Postscript

I’m told there’s be one other reason for combining the elections and holding Hartlepool today: cost

Labour is pretty cash strapped. Some staff expected to depart soon. You could combine promotional material for MP, council and metro mayor & keep down expenses

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) May 6, 2021

I’m told there’s be one other reason

arrr no other reason thar be

Labour Party be short of pieces of eight

xp if there no other reason thou see
twenty points ahead should they be

Crikey, is there now going to be TV coverage of this fiasco?

I haven't watched NEWSNIGHT for years but I now see ALAN MILBURN and Andrew Fisher appear on it.

Milburn already beginning the BS that "this isn't a referendum on KS" and "voters are telling KS that he should go further" !!

He should do something, tbf...

Starmer would no doubt stop to listen to her legitimate concerns.

Nicola Sturgeon telling Britain First leader Jayda Fransen exactly what #Glasgow thinks of them: pic.twitter.com/pT2HM4lRHj

— Bryan Simpson (@BrySim88) May 6, 2021

Starmer makes all other melt-politicians look good by being such a fucking pathetic coward, it's almost like he's a plant.

fuck this irrelevant shite lads, Royal Wedding: A Day to Remember is on shortly on bbc1!

Funny how support is sliding away from a party that keeps reminding voters every five minutes that it suffered the biggest defeat since the 1930s. Voters obviously see that as a challenge to beat https://t.co/6heiiRY4Sv

— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) May 6, 2021

*kieth downs his 18th jager of the night*

If he'd have just said my name is Kieth and I'm a reconstructed alcoholic tory cunt ... I still wouldn't have voted for him.

Con: 51.1% (+21.2)
Lab: 43.3% (-1.8)
LDem: 5.6% (-1.7)

another 20 pts gain for the tories in Kitty Brewster - yes that area that me, a keen local election watcher always knew wasn't some made up place.

This is v interesting. One of Sunderland's most deprived wards (I lived there at Uni). Terraces built for shipbuilders. Lost to the Lib Dems after a gigantic swing. Think Labour only need to lose a handful of seats to lose overall control of the council for first time in 50 years https://t.co/2h25WRafVt

— Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday) May 6, 2021

some voters just despise socialism!

So, how close are we to Starmer being in Resign City, Arizona?

Good thread here

Keir Starmer has made himself a hostage of the Labour right, and at a time of their choosing (not yet) they'll cast him aside. He dynamited all his bridges with the left, cutting himself off from any sources of counter-pressure, so no one's coming to save him. >

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) May 6, 2021

You really do love to see it

Shitpost Hegemony pic.twitter.com/FQrqwjPsJl

— Sanitary Naptime (@SanitaryNaptime) May 6, 2021

So, how close are we to Starmer being in Resign City, Arizona?

Jesus Christ

Hartlepool, parliamentary by-election result:

Con: 51.9% (+23.0)
Lab: 28.7% (-9.0)
Ind: 9.7% (+7.5)
RefUK: 1.2% (-24.6)
Grn: 1.2% (+1.2)
LDem: 1.2% (-3.0)
Oth: 6.1% (+4.9)

Con GAIN from Lab.

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 7, 2021

Oh my God. There is no helping these people.

Peter Mandelson interpreting the result as a rebuke against the 2010 electoral college(!): people look at us & say “you picked the wrong brother”

— Tom Clark (@prospect_clark) May 7, 2021

Mandelson more like sonned L man

Some guy called Steve Reed has ended up with the shortest straw and has been sent out to TV and radio studios to tell us that the problem is that Starmer and Labour haven't gone far enough yet in changing the direction of the party.

Anyway. Football is shit, politics is shit. If you want me I'll be in ILM.

"So, how close are we to Starmer being in Resign City, Arizona?"

80+1 is 81, I don't see the problem

ILM, a solid place to avoid shit

You and deems are almost as outdated as the Labour Party.

Praise from Caesar

OK, I'll stick around and bathe in your warm glow.

Lol @ these raw numbers, just an utter shitshow from 2019.

only Labour could find 3.5 million extra voters in 2017 without eating into the Tory vote at all (they themselves gained over 2 million) and not even consider that trying to find these people again might give them a better shot than trying to get Tories to vote Labour pic.twitter.com/XwXLeBg6fW

— The Horse from Triggerin' Terfs (@bojack90s) May 7, 2021

It's better to be ignored than hated. We'll win over more of the public but thankfully our hard-working activists have largely avoided the rage directed at Labour activists wrongfully in recent years. We're still making an impression. Keep it up, Keir.

— Benjamin Smith (@IWTheDarkPrince) May 7, 2021

you lot got 8.5k votes there last night. in 2019 you got almost 15.5k. blaming corbyn is utterly delusional. https://t.co/cPmuvVOiqc

— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) May 7, 2021

McShitter with a bouquet of flowers for Kieth in one hand and a sharpened knife behind his back.

Think this also depends on the leadership around it. Left-wing candidates will get little support from wreckers in the bureaucracy if the party if a strong left leadership isn't in place.

These results are bad but I’m not sure more left wing candidates would have done any better. Corbyn may have held Hartlepool but hasn’t Labour’s majority been decreasing fir a years now anyway? 1/3

— Chardine Taylor Stone (@ChardineTaylor) May 7, 2021

Is @IWTheDarkPrince not part of the Simon Hedges extended universe? Mandelson apparently saying this morning's results are a consequence of the party "choosing the wrong brother" in 2010 - good to see someone keeping the dmilifandom alive. At this point I am welcoming the Wes/Jess dream ticket purely for the lols-we're-all-going-to-die. Lab 25% vote share in GE2024 seems plausible/optimistic right now.

But also it's fair to say that 2017 result was an anomaly in that the manifesto was unambiguous about respecting Brexit ref. So until that resolves itself that's where we'll be at, which is a strong Tory coalition.

Of course the leadership from Keith doesn't help. Weird attacks on procedures isn't it when 150k people have died.

McD: Keir’s got to be given his chance, he says – but party should not send activists out "naked" without policies again.

what he's missing there is the massive hole in party funds and lack of activists, naked or wearing quite revealing NL attire.

"Is @IWTheDarkPrince not part of the Simon Hedges extended universe?"

Lol thanks, yeah that did look off to me though plenty of excuses are being made

We now go live to today’s forecast, with unprecedented levels expected across several regions pic.twitter.com/ic0AxTI4DS

— 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝕻𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖕 (@papasombra) May 7, 2021

"Lab 25% vote share in GE2024 seems plausible/optimistic right now."

Yeah this was like a Pol sci experiment. How many ppl would still tick that box after a year of this shit. If you up that a bit in cities you are looking at 30%

Trying to do something with Starmkholm Syndrome but it won't come together

Frankly if Labour remained competitive in the GE it would be an outlier in Europe, wouldn't it? Where centre-left parties have mainly crumbled into dust?

The difference here is a two-party system. So 30% for an 'opposition' is just how the bosses and landlords like it. They've hit a real sweet spot.

Yeah that's a good point.

even some of the governing centrist parties in western/northern Europe seem to have policies that would be derided as "hard-left" in this shithole country.

Disappointing that the people of Hartlepool have yet again failed to understand the opinions and analysis of Britain’s political pundits and will have to wait until the next general election for the opportunity to regain their trust

— Huw Lemmey (@huwlemmey) May 7, 2021

The turnout for the London Mayor could be interesting though pretty much all of my left twitter timeline voted unenthusiastically.

that heady brew of hardcore affordable housing advocacy and not being a tory candidate is just irresistible to Londoners