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2024 local elections

I suspect it is going to be a strange election all round. The Tories are clearly hated more than at any time in living memory, but Labour are wilfully alienating their core base, and given the gerrymandered system no one else is really in contention. I’m expecting some very unpredicted results and I’d not be surprised if a few fringe-nutters (George Galloway’s lot etc) found a few seats.
 
BBC hacks all calling into to the 10pm news from the counts. Tumbleweed blowing through, paint drying levels of excitement. There’s something pythonesque about it all.
 
Jamie said:
"Don't you know who I am?"
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That’s what went through my mind. He introduced the demand for ID! He’s so disorganised and lazy he couldn’t even comply with his own law.

Laura Kuensberg will take you through the night, chewing a nettle, spinning like hell on behalf of her party. she needs to get the boot when the Tories go.
 
I liked the Animal Welfare Party candidate Femy Amin's pitch from the candidates leaflet the most.

Count Binface's problem is that he isn't even the second nuttiest candidate, more work to do there.
 
Arooj Shah, the Labour leader of Oldham council, has rejected suggestions that Keir Starmer’s response to the Israel-Gaza war was to blame for the party losing control of the council. (See 6.44am.) When this was put to in an interview on the Today programme, she replied:

I don’t think that’s a fair statement to make, given that the issue of Gaza has been over the last year but what we’ve seen in Oldham is a lot longer than that … what we have had is 13 years of austerity and that’s been really, really difficult.
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Shah said that there had been “divisive, toxic politics” in Oldham for the last five years and that problems in the town were ultimately linked to Tory austerity.

Labour has lost control of Oldham Council in the elections but still remains the largest party.

Local Labour leader Arooj Shah says the conflict in Gaza is a factor but goes beyond that to toxic politics in the area. #R4Today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) May 3, 2024
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Prof John Curtice, the polling expert, has said that, according to the early results, Labour are not making the sort of “dramatic” gains the party did under Tony Blair before its landslide 1997 general election victory. They are doing more or less the same as they did in last year’s elections, Curtice said, while noting that early local election results “don’t look as though they’re going to provide that much solace to 10 Downing Street”. “It is not looking very good for the Conservatives, I think one has to say,” he told BBC Politics.


The Conservative party has not got much to be positive about this morning, but it is reminding journalists this morning that Labour failed to take control of Harlow council in Essex, even though it was a Labour target. (See 5.32am.) Keir Starmer told Sky News Labour needed to win “in places like Harlow”, the Tories say. “Whilst this is tough night for the Conservative party, it’s clear there is absolutely no love for Keir Starmer,” a Tory source said.

The Tories went into the local elections with 21 of the seats on the council, and Labour holding the other 12. All seats were up for election. The Tories now have 17 seats, and Labour 16.

Starmer and Angela Rayner visited the town on Wednesday.

www.theguardian.com

Labour wins Blackpool South byelection as Reform UK gives Conservatives scare; Tories suffer heavy losses in council elections – live

Chris Webb wins back ‘red wall’ seat held by Tories since 2019; Labour take control of Hartlepool, Thurrock and Rushmoor
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Not sure how relevant local elections really are to a GE, but noticeable that (looking at net gains/losses only) 50% of Con losses weren't Labour wins, which is a big deficit.
Denis Healey famously described an attack by Geoffrey Howe as like being savaged by a dead sheep. Now who does that remind you of? Fortunately the Tories are disintegrating at last, otherwise good intentions by themselves simply wouldn't cut it.
 
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