Why vote when there’s no real choice …
Why are all of us the real losers in the Batley and Spen by-election? ‘Tis only party politics as usual, innit like! Well, no. There are some fundamental issues, not least the one that Labour does no longer represent the actual working class, us peasants outside the M25. As many political comment writers and intellectuals have pointed out in articles published not by the MSM, Labour now represents the well-cushioned metro-’elite’, the chunk of the middle classes which prefers to cower behind the doors because: covid.
Labour, ever since the 2019 GE and the replacement of Corbyn – remember him? – by Starmer, has abandoned their constitutional role regarding the one issue that really matters: the defence of our civil liberties, robbed by the covid government. They voted with that government for all covid restrictions.
Meanwhile, the MSM have shown by their reports on the many tedious PR ‘events’ performed by the covid tsars – the PM himself, his SAGEs and his previous DHSC Head – that they are very happy in their self-appointed role of ‘loyal opposition’. Never mind that they are unelected – they’ve not even taken this role seriously and criticised the covid policies. We know why: they’re on the government’s payroll.
The sad and actually horrifying point is that because of the MSM’s dereliction of duty the thievery of our civil liberties doesn’t seem to matter to voters. Looking at the result of the Batley and Spen by-election we find that is was ‘business as usual: ‘put a rosette [insert LibLabCon] on a [insert animal of your choice] and it’ll win’, be it by ever so small a margin. The results for parties other than LibLabCon are however disastrous – with one exception. Here’s the official count:
“Kim Leadbeater (Lab) 13,296 (35.27%)
Ryan Stephenson (C) 12,973 (34.42%)
George Galloway (WP) 8,264 (21.92%)
Thomas Gordon (LD) 1,254 (3.33%)
Corey Robinson (Yorkshire) 816 (2.16%)
Therese Hirst (Eng Dem) 207 (0.55%)
Jack Thomson (UKIP) 151 (0.40%)
Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 107 (0.28%)
Mike Davies (Green Soc) 104 (0.28%)
Paul Bickerdike (CPA) 102 (0.27%)
Jonathan Tilt (FA) 100 (0.27%)
Anne Marie Waters (FB) 97 (0.26%)
Andrew Smith (Rejoin) 75 (0.20%)
Oliver Purser (Soc Dem) 66 (0.18%)
Jayda Fransen (Ind) 50 (0.13%)
Susan Laird (Heritage) 33 (0.09%)
Lab maj 323 (0.86%)
Electorate 79,373; Turnout 37,695 (47.49%)” (link)
The only candidate who was able to break into the LibLabCon cartel was George Galloway – not least, I believe, thanks to the hamfisted interview by the BBC which had made the rounds. A comment poster at INDEPENDENCE Daily provided the link. You can watch it here, after the event, as it were.
Many will now say that all the small independent parties should’ve worked together, that the leaders of those parties should have buried their mega-egos and united behind one candidate. However, adding up the votes for all those candidates, even when added to the Lib vote, they didn’t come close to Mr Galloway, never mind threatening LabCon. But, I can hear you say, if Messrs Tice and Fox would’ve made a stand then it would all have been oh so different! After all, the turnout was below 50% and surely such coalition would’ve been able to attract at least some of those non-voters!
Sorry, dear readers – I beg to differ. Voters are not stupid, they know when a candidate has parachuted himself in, they know there wouldn’t be much hope for him or her to properly represent them in the HoC. After all, they have no local ‘machine’ to help with all the issues troubling the local constituents. Why would they vote for someone with the noble ideal of fighting for Freedom of Speech on his banner when they are worried about the end of furlough, of no longer getting money from Sunak’s coffers?
This matters, the end of Lockdown matters – but thanks to the MSM this doesn’t seem to have been a main issue in this by-election. Of course we don’t really know what the candidates actually stood for because the MSM were too busy to report all the many national covid issues.
They were far more interested in a renewed fight for the Labour leadership, with Ms Angela Rayner allegedly poised to challenge Starmer, not least thanks to some trade unions who would back her (link, paywalled). That is a far more juicy spectacle for the MSM than a by-election which the incumbent party was always going to win, somehow.
I found it interesting that, as far as I can make out, the one issue which should’ve been at the forefront of the debate – covid lockdown policies – was of no concern. It is strange, isn’t it, that the two party leaders who said they’d work together didn’t unite on that platform, jointly fielding one candidate. Far be it from me to suggest that they didn’t wish to sully their reputations by becoming “a loser” in this by-election.
There’s also the fact, mentioned by Mr Galloway, that at the next GE this constituency will be split thanks to the boundary changes proposed by government. So why put in money and effort only to lose face by losing when this seat cannot be fought at the next GE anyway? Cynical – moi?
Might a lockdown-sceptic platform have worked, provided all candidates from the non-LibLabCon parties had united behind one person? Now we’ll never know, but the latest covid news suggest that such approach might at least have had some influence on the outcome.
There’s the ‘news’ that, thanks to T&T, the covid government won’t even need to institute another lockdown. The DM reports that already over 400,000 people have been told to self-isolate thanks to the NHS T&T app, and that this number could rise to 2 million (link). A lockdown-sceptic candidate could’ve asked who pays for this when furlough and other Sunak schemes are coming to an end.
Such candidate might have used this by-election platform to squeeze BJ into revealing his plans for the time after the ‘official’ end to lockdown on July 19th. The Times is reporting today, after the election, how BJ is already hedging his bets, warning us that we must still take ‘extra precautions’ because the SAGES expect ‘a big summer wave’ of infections (link, paywalled). A lockdown-sceptic candidate would have found many reports and data, even in the covid MSM, to challenge BJ on this issue.
That fearsome wave will surely arrive, thanks to T&T! A lockdown-sceptic candidate meanwhile could have pointed out the discrepancies between ‘case numbers’ and numbers of patients in hospital or ‘covid deaths’, facts which even the covid MSM have reluctantly published in the past weeks.
A lockdown-sceptic candidate could have talked about the government plan to vaccinate schoolchildren. After all, the constituents in Batley and Spen do have children, don’t they! In an incredibly sloppy report The Times is today (!) pushing out the boat to get the covid lemmings behind this horrendous scheme, blaring that ‘most parents’ want their children to get that vaccine.
This demand, we’re told, is “according to a poll of 4,439 parents taken in April and May.” (link, paywalled). They don’t say who did the polling – was it the ONS? Furthermore, they don’t mention once that meanwhile the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation has declined to give a decision because they rightly wait for more data on the safety of those jabs. That issue has been reluctantly reported in the MSM during the last week, so a lockdown-sceptic candidate would have been able to go to town on this.
Instead, we got another example of the cosy relationship between the MSM and the establishment parties where the actual outcome doesn’t really matter: they’re all inside the same lockdown bubble, neither Lab nor Con candidate would rock that boat.
It is deeply regrettable that the non-establishment parties and their leaders could not find it in themselves to unite behind one lockdown-sceptic candidate to challenge the Westminster cabal, especially since that seat will be lost anyway at the next GE in two years. This bodes ill for our political culture.
The reason why all of us a losers in this by-election is that the splintering and isolation of us voters, created by lockdowns and the robbery of our civl liberties, has borne the fruit the Westminster cabal has desired: lots of tiny parties, all fighting each other and thus incapable of fighting the establishment. Job done, innit like!
KBO
The reason no-one is concerned about the lockdown and vaccinations is that most people can see it’s an unfortunate necessity. Hence a non-issue in their minds.
For People substitute Sheeple. the quivering brain washed cowards. Stand up and fight for your freedom !
Thoroughly depressing isn’t it Viv.
I suppose the constituency soon not existing, had some effect.
You are quite correct that what we really need is a party fighting to restore our fundamental liberties.
Instead of which, we seem to be drifting towards a one party state. That is very ominous.
I remember a communist at my school in the sixties, expounding the theory that in the USSR all opinions were represented within the one party.
Look how long it took for that idea to be disproved.
“A lockdown-sceptic candidate meanwhile could have pointed out the discrepancies between ‘case numbers’ and numbers of patients in hospital or ‘covid deaths’…..”
Covid deaths are a tiny fraction of the “surging numbers” of Covid cases, but the number of Covid deaths is also fraudulently exaggerated. That is achieved by the ONS finding Covid to be the “underlying cause of death”, regardless of what is written on the death certificate.
I honestly think that voters generally have not even begun to grasp the implications of maintaining the status quo! I doubt whether many are even aware that they have been soundly and convincingly brainwashed into believing that COVID is ‘The BlackDeath’ and ‘we’re all gonna die’!!
Until a single party manifests itself with a truly convincing leader, enunciating ‘the message’ in language that is unequivocally ‘on target’ (instead of all these ‘well meaning’ but insignificant mini-groups0, there will be no change! We need a leader with a strong voice bringing a doctrine we can all understand and get behind (and donate towards disseminating!!!), the long march off a short pier to the demise of democracy will accelerate and there will one day be no more elections at all!
I think it is true to say we already have a ‘single party’ (it’s the ‘purple’ party) an amalgam of ‘conservative’ and ‘labour’. But I, sure as heck don’t think their ‘message’ is either benign nor truthful!!!
One party with more than a little Green mixed in Frederica. It seems that the Conservatives might as well change their name to – the Totalitarian Party !!
Presumably Ukip’s poor showing is because it is viewed as a one issue, Brexit, party and the Brino is thought to be Brexit.
Personally I’m furious about Galloway getting votes. Though he obviously muscled in because there are Muslim voters in Batley and Spen.
What SHOULD UKIP do I wonder? Become the United Kingdom Party for Independents? Or perhaps better still, the U.K. Party for Liberty.
Such a depressing result for all of those brave candidates standing for the small or new parties. They are totally ignored or totally smeared by the main stream media and end up losing their deposit and feel disheartened and demoralised knowing that each day that passes takes us deeper into the 2 party system. Even worse, we have just 1 Green Party MP but are heading full tilt into its manifesto which is going to be ruinously expensive and hit the poorest hardest. For example, the E10 petrol being introduced this September will cause engines on some makes of older cars to seize up. Looks like hubby’s Mazda mx5 won’t be compatible with it. What a miserable day. Can’t even go for a drink in our favourite pubs as they have closed either due to shortage of staff or to protect them as the covid rates are rising in the town. Still not seen anyone going for a test though the test team seems to have set up on a permanent basis in a car park …complete with their portaloos …and on the town square.
“the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation has declined to give a decision because they rightly wait for more data on the safety of those jabs.”
I would like to question the word ‘rightly’ here. Swine flu vaccine rollout was halted after 23 deaths; the combined assault of all the jabs worldwide is running at thousands of deaths, and injuries in million territory, if you estimate the unreported ones. And given that no child, bar 6-or-so with existing health problems, has died from Covid, what are they waiting for? First do no harm.
I have always detested the way the MSM will personalise issues, draw one’s eye off the ball, by picking an atypical or heart-breaking case, especially if they can find a child involved, to avoid the main issue and allow them to berate a ‘heartless’ minister or party. But have you noticed that, whilst there is an endless parade of examples on the internet of jab injuries, let alone deaths, that can bring one to tears, our ‘caring’ media show none at all?
Yet isn’t this the one case where showing injuries is EXACTLY the right thing to do?
Let’s direct the fear (and emotion) away from the flu-like virus and towards the real danger.
The following link shows a tearful parent addressing a county board in the US. She, foolishly, offered her children for the Pfizer trial. Her two sons are ok so far, but her once vivacious 12yo is now wheelchair bound with a nasal tube and mentally impaired.
12-YEAR-OLD MADDIE A VICTIM OF PFIZER MRNA INJECTION CLINICAL TRIAL
https://www.bitchute.com/video/hJ9UJG33siW2/
Initially BitChute censored a longer version of this, that shows its official setting, with a label alleging “Contains incitement to hatred.” This shorter version seems to have been reinstated. But if not, and you use a VPN, switch to a US IP address to view. In true projection style, some of the comments suggest these are actors, but anti-mRNA jabbers do not need fabrications as the effects are all too real.
If only Richard Braine had been left in peace to lead UKIP, UKIP would still be a force to be reckoned with. provided as you say Viv all the smaller parties collaborated with each other.
What a thing to do, making his life impossible then suing him for £16000. So thanks to all concerned. BoJo must be really grateful to you,
I suspect that UKIP had infiltrators to see it off.
Mary In fairness UKIP was collapsing fast before Gerard and subsequently Richard became leaders. If anti-Islam was a vote winner I would have thought that For Britain would be flourishing under the charismatic Ann Marie Waters?
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with everything that Gerard and Richard have uttered on the issue but on translating that into a vote winner they failed. They failed to understand that to be labelled anti-Islam is to be labelled as a racist. Despite spirited attempts in TV interviews Richard and Gerard could not bury the racist hatchet and thus UKIP activists and long time members drifted off. Nobody, who has a family to feed and bills to pay can afford to be openly active in anti-Islam politics – it is career suicide.
Jake, I agree with you. Neil Hamilton is the best leader UKIP has had for a long time, but he is not elected, and is too old. Plus he is hampered with a party that has far too much political baggage in addition to his own of course and I am afraid the brand is still way too toxic. The simple fact is that UKIP should have gone down the road of rebranding when it had the chance a few years back. I did initially think that the Heritage Party would become a suitable replacement for UKIP, but recent by election results do not bode well for the future of that party, namely 1.4% vote share at Hartlepool, 1.1% vote share at Chesham and Amersham and now 0.09% vote share at Batley and Spen. Their policies however are based around conspiracy theories and its outlook is amateurish, and this will not wash with the electorate. As for Reform UK, well I give up. It has no hope whatsoever and has no policies is secretive, doesn’t believe in party democracy and is badly led, and where any party that professes to be a serious one is getting less votes than the Monster Raving Looney Party then things are very bad indeed. New parties will not succeed unless they develop a winning formula and have a charismatic leader in place, someone like Nigel Farage for instance.
Well it damn well shouldn’t be career suicide Jake!
That just makes the point that we have totally LOST, Freedom of Speech!
Do you realise that throughout the cold war this country never banned the Communist Party. Even Mosley’s Fascists were tolerated right up to the beginning of WW2.
Whatever it’s called, Political Correctness, cultural marxism, ‘diversity’, I don’t care. It is simply WRONG.
mary, is that what happened to Richard Braine? I thought he was a ray of hope at a dark time. Then he unaccountably disappeared.
Pauline………..the problem with Richard Braine was that he was pro Gerard Batten and would have made him Deputy Leader had he continued. I met him several times outside Parliament during the Brexit protests and he seemed to be committed to the cause, but whether he was true leadership material was debatable. It is one thing being a committed activist and quite another being a party leader and forming policy. Gerard Batten started off well as leader, but he was the one who encouraged extremists to join which led to the mass exodus of MEP’s and long standing activist members, party officers, and election candidates like myself from the party to The Brexit Party. The slide however started when Diane James resigned the leadership after 18 days and was totally stuffed after the Henry Bolton shenanigans, by which time it was one in the last chance saloon. The decline of the party is due to a combination of factors, and I am afraid to say now there is no way back.
Funny that Colin because at 4.36pm I made 2 suggestions of how UKIP might make it’s way back.
Viv is correct in her analysis that the MSM and Westminster elites have succeeded in splintering opposition but after watching the Galloway interview isn’t it also glaringly evident that everyone who pays their TV licence complicit in perpetuating their agenda?
As I have said a hundred times on these pages. We need a Protest Party. One which espouses a selection of the most urgent of protests. Each with its own leader but within an umbrella / platform, Of a Party run by a Manager/leader of status, with NIL policies other than managing the seperate protest leaders and their percent for their own protest. ( Exactly as the Queen calms down the Politicians, Armed forces head, Church, lawyers, Lords etc.) That should baffle the media and they could not ignore it. There would of course be arguments about all sorts. But the support of ALL for the Mother Protest Party. Might work. Think about how little actually works for the people.
Think about HOW Not ME,me, me,.
TG Spokes………..can you start that ‘protest’ party then?
“Voters are not stupid” For the first time ever, I beg to differ Viv !!!!!!!
Everything hangs on civil liberties and free speech, your income security, potholes in the road etc.
No good voting for mainstream parties who tinker (or pretend to) round the edges of issues while leaving the fundamental elephants in the room untouched.
Well said Mary; the “sheeple” may well be our, and their own, worst enemy.
Well the good people of Batley and Spen have elected a strong voice for Palestine. Can The Sister even find it on a map? Meanwhile, you can’t get elected in the Middle East without a clear policy on gay rights for Batley and Spen. Recount those postal votes.
Everything hangs on civil liberties and free speech. Totally agree mary. Perhaps the ‘voters’ who did not vote were the only sensible ones this time.