… is before the election
After the election is before the election, as the saying has it. First, a disclaimer: my thoughts on the election results are necessarily very general because the counts are still going on. Still, there’s the Hartlepool by-election with the stunning result of the Labour loss and while most constituencies in Wales and Scotland have posted the results of the ‘super Thursday’ elections counts in London are still ongoing. I’m sure you’ll have found the results in your constituency by now and I hope some of the independent candidates did well.
However, let me repeat the saying: after the election is before the election. So what can we learn from the results so far? Is Labour really dying, as all the erudite comment piece writers in the metropolitan MSM are now saying? Or is this yet another sign for the distance between the Westminster Village dwellers and the rest of the country? Because in Wales – still part of the Union, as far as I know – Labour is not at all dead. The pitiful performance of Dripford as ‘First Minister’ has actually given Welsh Labour one of their best results. Meanwhile Londoners seem to be ok with having Khan as Mayor yet again – but that’s not yet official. He is a member of the Labour Party, isn’t he … Add that in Scotland, the Sturgeon has also been endorsed by a majority of Scots and the election results start looking a bit more sinister.
It seems that an incumbent, no matter their previous performance, will get re-elected. Might this be a sign for the increasing willingness of ordinary people to let ‘them’ do as they like and re-elect them anyway, according to the saying about the devil one knows being better?
There are some other general results which deserve more analysis: the apparent demise of the LibDems for example. Didn’t they dominate local councils, weren’t they known for running excellent local campaigns, springboards for getting members elected to the HoC? Perhaps their experience is now similar to that of the other smaller parties, namely that without an incumbent chances for election are perishingly small?
Isn’t that what we see when we look at the results so far for Independent candidates as well? According to the very general chart on the BBC website (link), there were some 140 Independents elected in England. If some of them were elected in your constituency, please let us all know!
After the election is before the election – so the movement for independent candidates really must learn what worked and what didn’t if we want to get out of the clutches of the Tory Party on the one hand and the dying grip of Labour on the other. It’s not good enough to celebrate the nearly 10% of votes won by the independent Sam Lee in Hartlepool when we add the results achieved by David Kurten’s Party and the Reform Party – both not even getting 2% of the votes. This simply makes the result look even more grim.
Not even the result so far for the Greens – nil in Scotland, nil in Wales and about 50% fewer votes even than those achieved by independent candidates in England – is a cause for celebration. All of this ought to scare us instead because it indicates that the Tory Party has hoovered up the policies which were espoused by those parties.
It’s still possible to try an analysis though – and, I’m afraid, I can see a disturbing picture arising. It’s not the ‘demise of Labour’ which all the erudite MSM Opinion piece writers are fixating on which is disturbing – it’s the demise of the established parties like the Libdems and the Greens, never mind what one thinks of them. The failure of the Reform Party also fits into the grim image I discern. This is underlined by the interpretation Tories give to the Hartlepool result:
“Boris Johnson is preparing for a decade-long premiership after a series of historic victories in Labour’s former heartlands.The prime minister said yesterday that he would embark on a “massive project” of levelling up the country as he sought to cement the Conservatives’ electoral success. […] Cabinet ministers said they believed that there had been a permanent change in the nation’s political identity and suggested that Johnson could outlast Margaret Thatcher, who was in Downing Street for 11 years.They said that the Conservative Party must press home its electoral advantage by winning the “culture wars” and continuing to challenge “woke” views in the years to come.” (link, paywalled)
Clearly, they’re very cocksure and are already preparing for the next election – but is it really a sign that the ‘nation’s political identity’ has changed or is it a sign that the Tory Party has gobbled up so many political issues that no other political parties with a distinct identity have got a chance? Is Sir John Redwood correct when he only sees the economy as driving force for election results in his Diary today (link)? Has it now come to this that it’s no longer LibLabConGreenGrey (grey for ‘independents’, for ‘others’) but a blue melange with flecks of green and red?
The frightening image I see emerging is that, thanks to incumbency, we’ll have semi-feudal fiefdoms such as in Wales where Labour had been in power since devolution and in Scotland where the Sturgeon can do as she likes. It seems there’s no opposition possible in those neo-feudal entities while in England only little red enclaves here and there counterbalance the apparent Tory supremacy.
I believe this outcome simply demonstrates that people all over the country don’t give a d*mn any longer, that they only wish to be left alone, letting incumbents and ‘professional politicians’ ride roughshod over our civil liberties. I’m afraid that BJ’s party will go on enforcing policies on us which we moan about but aren’t doing anything against even when given the opportunity through elections. That applies to the devolved parts of the Union as well, just with a different rosette colour. I’m afraid this will still be the case come the next GE – especially as long as the various ‘new Parties’ and their leaders seem to be more keen to promote themselves rather than leave their egos at the door and get together to try and establish a proper opposition.
After the election is before the election – we surely deserve better than having wannabe ‘party leaders’ pop up a few weeks before polling day. If independents want to get a foot into the door they must start working now and make their voices heard. The issues are there, from covid and our civil liberties to ‘woke’ and green blobbery. Start working now – get writing. A month before elections, be they local, be they by-elections, or be they – God forbid! – a snap GE is too late.
And if we must look at Labour’s former glory and it’s present demise, then let’s remember that they were successful when their candidates championed us, the people, and our real, practical concerns rather than using spin, stuffing minor political ‘causes’ like woke down our collective throats. There’s nothing more dangerous than a people having become apathetic to politics because they feel there’s nothing they can do about it. Can independents turn this around? Only if they start working now … together!
KBO!
In the latter part of my four year term as a UKIP County Cllr (2013-17) I was heavily involved with a grassroots movement against the plan by the local Tory led council to dump an overspill town, euphemistacally named a ‘garden village’ on GreenBelt. All 3 ‘preferred’ sites happened to be in my division.
In 2016 the local residents group in one town (mostly Tory folk) decided to go ‘political’ and registered with ElCom. They took out their first Tory council leader – their Cllr got resoundingly re-elected last Thursday. In 2018 they took out a second and Indpendents standing where the overspill town was targetted started winning. We all met together and plotted, UKIP stood where they didn’t as we’d align with them if any of our candidates won. They begged me to stand as an independent.
In 2019 the Tory group lost overall control and were kept in power (fume, fume) by the LibDems.
This year all former UKIP stood as Independents – our best result was second place with nearly 20% of the vote. My old division was won by an Independent – he beat me to it due to my covid related hibernation or I’d have got it back as an Independent. In the delayed council elections we got 2 more Independents and 1 more residents group elected so are now the largest group. I’ll be throwing my towel on the deck chair Teutonic style for my ward in 2022.
Viv wanted us to report how alternatives had fared in our areas, if I remember right.
Well my Independent for County Council (Derbyshire) got more than the Lib Dem. But Council remains massively Con controlled.
I’ve mailed him saying how much I like the idea of Independents nationally as well as local.
ReformUK for PCC knocked out in first round, as was LibDem but ReformUK have mailed saying Derby City canvassing very encouraging. I’ve asked them for more info.
Incidentally, I’m very disappointed about London. The problem I think was that there were too many, ‘better than Kahn’ candidates, for voters to choose from. I wished early on that they would all get together behind Heritage.
Mind you, there is almost certainly fraud backing Khan there, IMHO.
Thanks, Pauline – looks a similar story, about Independents, across the board, as far as i can make out.
Both myself and another former Ukipper stood as Independents in the county council elections in my neck of the woods in Kent, having formed our party only seven weeks ago. So from a baseline of zero we achieved between us 1133 votes, in other words one of us got 599 and the other 534, which represented a vote share of 4.7% and 4.4% respectively. Of course we didn’t win, in fact we came bottom of the poll, but it was a start and something to build upon for the future. What can be said with certainty is had we remained as Reform UK candidates before Nigel Farage stepped down as leader, we would have been lucky to have got more than a hundred votes each as their national campaign was that dire. Prior to being selected as a Reform UK candidate I had been closely involved in the Heritage Party and had originally intended to stand as an election candidate with them. They too ran a lacklustre campaign devoid of any real direction, so we made the right decision to run as Independents instead. We want to replicate the success of Thurrock Independents in Essex and Swale Independents in Kent, both of which were borne out of the demise of UKIP. Swale Independents have gone from strength to strength and not only run the borough council in their area, but displaced the Conservative county councilor on Thursday with one of their own. So well done to Swale Independents, they certainly lead the Independent way in Kent.
Well done for valiantly keeping up the fight.
Voters will lemming-like keep on voting for poison though. I expected the Tories to get slaughtered but people seem to be loving all the abuse heaped on them by TPTB.
I believe that the quote below was meant for Starmer, Corbyn, Abbot, plus a few LDs. I have added a couple of paragraphs.
“Thank you Hartlepool. Let’s hope this marks the end of Labour’s Self Righteous Woke Band standing. When will the Penny drop? Let me spell it out for you because already MPs are trying to justify the defeat and totally missing the point.
Most people do not want Woke, they hate cancel culture, they are against open immigration, they do not want to be talked down to and labelled racists. They hate that our culture and our history is being rubbished and attacked.
They hate that our nation’s heroes are being cancelled. They hate the crime and violence whilst Labour constantly make excuses for the perpetrators because of ethnicity.
They hate the constant attacks on our police and undermining their powers to protect us. They hate you taking the knee. …. The public resent you for it. Understand this and then you have a chance to start to rebuild some credibility.”
They are disgusted with so called “democrats” who tried to thwart the 63% of constituencies which voted to leave the EU and the 80% of them that voted to get Brexit done.
They are fed up with climate change evangelists who demand that each UK household should stump up around £100,000 to meet predicted global temperature rise, based on flawed IPCC models.
In short they want leaders who are interested in the wishes and welfare of electors, rather than of Woke pressure groups and big party sponsors.
Amen to all that Roger Arthur!
The problem is Roger, they have swapped one woke non entity for another. Nothing will change and that is the problem.
Absolutely Roger.
You might add they also hate the interference in schools with child sexual identification
They hate the indoctrination in schools of our children, such that children are alienated from their parents.
They hate the breaking up of family life, such that children do not have fathers.
They possibly hate the sexual instruction children get in school, such that they are `encouraged` to `try it` or watch porn at a young age
They hate the idea od Stasi type snitching on neighbours and they particularly hate children being instructed to spy on their parents.
They particularly hate successive goverments that fail to get to grips with care in the community and the `end game` where those dying are fleeced of their life capital that they have saved up, paid taxes on and wish to pass on to give their children or grand cildren a `start` in life so that poverty is not carried on from generation to generation.
People/organisations that don’t plan for the future end up in poverty.
Perpetuation of musical chair party politics has had a stunning result.
An ancient Roman would have recognised it instantly.
Bread ( Furlough etc )
Circuses ( 1 year hols, Netflix, )
The Emperor’s ( Incumbent ) paying.
‘The incumbents seem always to win’. That smacks of the old ’Rotten Boroughs’. The ‘fiefdoms’ take us right back to the Middle Ages. None of this bodes well for the poor old serfs! If Johnson has been accepted as the ‘best of the bunch’ to the extent that he can now contemplate a ‘decade in office’…..heaven help Britain!
I have been checking out our local results (as far as they have been posted). Our local Council has been LibDem dominated for years. The few UKIP councillors hung on as Independents. Now the Conservatives have swept the board and the LimpDumbs have been well and truly trounced! Only two of our Independents remain. The turnout was poor – particularly in my own ward where it was shameful! The ‘rejected’ papers were very few (mine and hubby’s would have been amongst them) so the hope to have them counted as ‘protest’ votes did not happen! Labour did not do well but this has never been a Labour Council in my lifetime.
I foresee the Johnson stranglehold on our lives will now increase and political opportunism and ‘corruption’ will become more rampant than ever! I do not think that the Johnson administration will become more ‘conservative’, rather it will become less so and increasingly more ‘woke’. I suggest that Johnson’s ‘conservatives’ are the replacement ‘Labour’ party.
Unless the small fringe parties join together and form one cohesive movement I see no way out of the ‘dark age’ into which Britain is about to descend!
Join the club girl plus hubs – none of the above in large letters.
All gravy-train’ers where I live.
My chum, a cons councillor, many years ago made the comment – the incumbents always increase their majorities over time.
The hartlepool vote was unfinished business. Too many voters wanting to kick out labour and at least 10,000 voters seeing no point in voting. The brexit voters switched to the tories and lots of labour voters stayed home. Nothing concrete in the conservative message for the people of Hartlepool who will see their public services streamlined and relocated. They just voted out one monster by electing another less obvious charlatan.
Well said Matt up North. I reckon you have called that absolutely spot on! The potential ‘protest’ voters stayed at home. I think they did that in my area too! The real truth is that there is no real rallying point for those voters who are fed up with the status quo but in this instance the worst of all options appeared to be Labour! I’m only partly surprised. Given that Mandelson had the Hartlepool seat – and he purported to be ‘New Labour’ same as Starmer – the Kneeler should, theoretically, have done better! But, it seems the voters can still recognise a politician whose arrogance leads him to openly despise ‘the man in the street’ who still has a vote! Having said all that, ‘arrogance’ is the writing that runs through the middle of every politician in the LibLabCon these days1
“the Tory Party has hoovered up the policies which were espoused by those parties.”
Precisely. That has been a given, and deepening by the week, for true conservatives, since Boris took over.
On social policies Boris has moved into the Red; on the environment he has adopted the Orange, and now even the lunatic extreme Greenery. No wonder they have all found a new home.
But I think that is only half the story. It works in two ways, only one of which is presented.
The media see only what they want to see or that they want the rest of us to ‘see’.
So, yes, that explains the collapse of the opposition votes. But what about conservative supporters? Why have they held up? Why not at least abstain or vote for one one of the truly conservative new parties?
Lapping up media misinformation is only part of it. Some believing Boris achieved a clean Brexit, rather than a slightly tweaked version of May’s Withdrawal Agreement, will go along because of that; again only part of it. Some believing he has understood more than not one iota about Covid and the ‘vaccines’ and has not been played by an alliance of darker forces from the start, will also be part of it. Stockholm Syndrome is part of it.
But mainly, I think, because the opposition parties are so obviously incoherent, inconsistent, and shambolic, with many clearly incompetent individuals in shadow positions, with little intellect amongst them, and, especially Labour, deeply split. Dangerous, irrelevant, unelectable.
So even true conservatives have held their noses and voted Tory as the least worst option, as a necessity to keep the others out. This would tie in with the fledgling new parties doing so badly – no one dare risk it. (Wales, Scotland and London are different countries with different backdrops.) But of course it is held up as a resounding endorsement of Boris. There are plenty of conservatives to be found to make the point that it isn’t, but that is the last thing the media want.
Totally agree on the Independents by the way. There is so much right, and Right, thinking out there, each with a different focus and strength, but it is compartmentalised into electoral insignificance. An alliance or amalgamation would be so much stronger than the individual parts. The Mail moved away from me a long while ago, but it used to run a Right Minds, feature. That’s not a bad label for the tin.
Phil. I suspect Stockholm Syndrome has played a large part in people submitting to lock downs. They are abuse, if you think about it, but have been presented all along as T.P.T.B. ‘caring’ for us.
Rotherham had a very low turnout. Was that replicated elsewhere? An indication of the ‘no point in voting, the Gov always gets in’ attitude.
The always coming, never arriving climate catastrophe will eventually make people doubt. If as I believe current environmental and energy policies lead to a major Grid collapse then the government will become vulnerable.
JF
Absolutely right.
This site is brilliant. It shows many of the extinction or catastrophist predictions: when they were made, the source of the claim, when they were due and what actually happened, or (tongue firmly in cheek) a countdown to when they will happen. A treasure of information. The earliest is from 1956 predicting peak oil production in the year 2000; it had doubled with no sign of decline.
https://extinctionclock.org/
Thanks PhiloSophical. I have saved this site so I can explore it in detail presently. Looks most interesting.
Yet the madness continues… It must be cleared from all educational establishments before we are safe from it.
I have to agree with you there J.F. You would have thought B.J.’s green blobbery would have gone against him by now. There must still be some people capable of thinking for themselves surely!
I suppose the wonderful (not) vaccine roll out has distracted voters.
In a sense J.R. reading everything as coming down to the economy is correct because if that fails everyone suffers. But he knows that the Global Warming Scam threatens our economy big time.
I’m in despair.