Boris Badenuff gets a pay rise

[Octavious]

It's an interesting question whether the Brexit Party would benefit from preferential voting or not. Clearly they'd get more first preference votes, and may even pick up a few seats in a general election. However they'd also lose most of their ability to deny votes to the Tories, which is the source of their current considerable influence... I reckon the BP are secretly quite happy with how FPTP is working for them.

[orathaic]

<snip>

Labour rolled over and died, and aren't saying much to anyone.

The corpse of UKIP twitched slightly, but that may have just been the wind.

Can we be fair to the corpses? Labour came 4th, proving that not having a strong position on the brexit question will kill you in a general election.

UKIP came 6th, after the monster racing loon party (whose position on Brexit I am not up to date with). Proving that Nigel Farage has left a rump behind, unclear whether they are racists or ultra nationalists... But when up against two other brexit parties they are dead... Still the monster raving loons aren't exactly prime competition for anyone legitimate party, so losing to them shows exactly how badly UKIP is doing.

Now the important noise. Plaid Cymru and the Greens made an election pact with the Lib Dems, and thus only one pro-remain candidate appeared on the ballet. Effectively winning the seat by not splitting the vote. The Tories and Brexit party could have had another pro-brexit seat, if only they could learn to work together...

[Octavious]

The result suits the Brexit Party just fine. They'd have probably preferred a few more votes, but they've proven once again that they can hurt the Tories if they want to. If the Tories are looking for an election the result suits their purposes too. It they wanted to win that badly they would probably have chosen someone other than a convicted fraudster to fight the seat.

The Tories and the Brexit Party forming some kind of pact is damned near a certainty. Forming the pact now would have won them the seat, but may well have been enough to panic Labour into some action. Instead the Remain parties are sat on their hands happy with the delusion that the Brexit Party are going to split the Brexit Party and allow Remain to triumph.

[Hellenic Riot]

UKIP's corpse only twitched because they got less votes than the Monster Raving Loony Party...


As for Labour - they always do terribly in by-elections that are between the Lib Dems and the Tories. Here's one at the height of Blair's power:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EA862SyWkAA ... name=large

So reading too much into a campaign they didn't even bother to try in is a bit dubious.

[Octavious]

Yeah, Owen Jones was making a big issue of the old Romsey by election yesterday. In all honesty it's a fair point. You can't point to Thursday's election and say it proves that Labour is in trouble. Pretty much everything else points to Labour being up to their necks and sinking, but the by election by itself doesn't add much.

[Hellenic Riot]

Yes - By-elections very often turn into two horse races between the incumbent party and the by-election specialists, with the occasional spoiling factor of an insurgent party (UKIP a few years ago, the Brexit Party today). It's not uncommon for whichever one of Labour or the Tories that don't have a realistic chance of making a gain to just write the campaign off and see their vote obliterated as a result: Not least because they'd both generally rather that the Lib Dems won the seat than their real opposition did.

And yeah, Labour is indeed in a lot of shit - but the byelection isn't illustrative of any of it.

[orathaic]

@ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49251257

How is this news? EU has said for months that they are not renegotiating the exit deal. This isn't news, except to the few Tories so wrapped up in their own fantastical worlds...

[Octavious]

@ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49251257

How is this news? EU has said for months that they are not renegotiating the exit deal. This isn't news, except to the few Tories so wrapped up in their own fantastical worlds...

Once again you're falling for the bluster, Ora. There are no Tories remotely surprised by this.

[orathaic]

It is not Tory bluster I am falling for, it is the BBC's shitty reporting.

As you say, the Torys know better. So why are the BBC putting this on their front page? They don't even have the excuse of sensationalization of news to sell more ads. They seem to just be a pravda for the UK

[Octavious]

It's silly season, Ora. There are a load of political journalists with nothing remotely interesting to talk about. Anyone says anything and it counts as news. This isn't a new phenomenon. It's been like this since time immemorial.