Jeremy's Den: A Better Future... Maybe.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

(William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919)

Conservative MP Craig MacKinlay was adamant that there are still Tory voters out there,

saying the problem is “not the Conservative switchers, but the Conservative stay-at-homers”.

That’s according to one of the Conservative clutching-at-strawers.

(Diane Morgan, Have I Got News For You?, 12 May 2023)

Just in case you had forgotten, click on the images for larger easier-to-read versions.

For quite some time after the English locals, there was some huffing and puffing among the metropolitan punditariat, about the clear and present danger of them paving the way towards a hung Parliament. Usually coupled with claims that the UK desperately needs proportional representation, which would deliver nothing but hung Parliaments. Never mind the inconsistencies, the prospect of a hung Parliament was based on the common wisdom that Labour need a 10% lead over the Conservatives for a majority in Commons. Which I totally supported as long as its two pillars held. The most obvious one was the hypothesis that the Scottish seats would remain more or less the same as in 2019, and this one has pretty much tumbled down under our unbelieving eyes recently. The second and less obvious one was that the Liberal Democrat vote would stay in the low 10s. A low vote share would have deprived the LibDems of potential gains in the South of England, which wouldn't preclude a hung Parliament. But also, and less intuitively, would have helped the Conservatives in Con-Lab marginals in England, and thusly jeopardised a Labour majority. Then, ten days after the locals, we had a poll from More In Common, which pretty much disproved the '10% lead hurdle' narrative. Let's see first what kind of voting intentions it found.

So we have Labour leading by 10.6% GB-wide, which is the closest we got to the infamous '10% hurdle' in the last five weeks. Labour are not even doing exceptionally well in Scotland, but the SNP down 12% on their 2019 result already hints that the Scottish pillar of the narrative is falling apart. The poll also shows a visible Liberal Democrat surge in Scotland and England, even in London, quite surprisingly. Now look at what these numbers are predicted to deliver by my trio of projection models. Even the least favourable projection, from Flavible, does not have Labour just scraping past the majority hurdle. Which, as you remember, is 322 as long as Sinn Féin hold their current seats and don't take them. If you also factor in the SDLP taking the Labour whip, the worst case here is a 39-seat working majority. Nothing flamboyant, but still safely past the hurdle.

My own model projects Labour 36 seats clear of the working majority hurdle. Then I can also tweak it to see what happens when the vote shares move against Labour. If the LibDems bagged just 10%, it would hurt both them and Labour, proving my point that a high LibDem vote also helps Labour in Con-Lab marginals. The LibDems would lose 11 potential seats, and Labour would lose 17, but still hold a majority. If you move the cursor on the Labour and Conservative vote shares instead, the tipping point where Labour lose their majority occurs when their lead is reduced to 4.5%, far below the infamous proverbial 10%. And also far below what the current trends of general election polling predict. If you look more closely at the tail ends of the trendlines, you see that they still show a favourable situation for Labour, in the batch of polls fielded after the English locals. Despite a wee Labour slump combined with a continuing rise of the LibDem vote, they will be helped by a confirmed poor performance by the SNP, while the Conservative bite some votes off Reform UK.

Unfortunately, The Hipstershire Gazette thought it was the right window of opportunity for yet another asinine rant by their notorious Tory-enabler Owen Jones. It turned out to be his stupidest piece in a long time, though he had set the bar pretty low already. The whole thing is even worse word salad than usual, which contradicts itself from one sentence to the next and doesn't make one valid point for anything he pretends to support. Even his brief reference to French politics proves he understands jack shit to that too, or he would have noticed that a two-round first-past-the-post system has produced exactly what he wishes for the UK, a hung Parliament. He even gets it wrong when he claims that Alternative Voting, aka Instant Runoff, would be worse than first-past-the-post, as his own employer published a study by the Electoral Reform Society thirteen years ago, that proved the exact opposite, though admittedly not by much. But Wee Owen never lets facts get in the way of his opinions, does he?

Can we make this quick? I've a photo shoot to get to where I'm supposed to look normal in a curry house.

(Rishi Sunak, The Windsors: Coronation Special, 2023)

I feel quite sorry for Rishi, because he is in Moldova with Zelenskyy and the European

leaders, trying to do big boy politics, and once again he is clearing up and being asked

about Boris Johnson, and he’s not getting to do the Prime Minister thing at all.

(Ruth Davidson, Have I Got News For You?, 2 June 2023)

There is a widespread narrative, not just in the UK, that we are living through a democratic crisis because the people don't trust their politicians. Which I think is a bit of a shortcut, and may be missing some variables in the broth. When and where does a democratic crisis start? When fewer than two thirds of the people bother to vote? Then the USA have been in a permanent crisis for decades now, which is true, but not for that reason. The USA are in a crisis because their politics have become highly confrontational, more so than at any time since the New Deal years, in the last fifteen years. And also because many of their politicians thrive on it and feed it. France is in a political crisis because Emmanuel Macron has made it a habit to never listen to anybody but himself, and has orchestrated something of an institutional crisis to keep his oppositions in check. The UK is definitely not going through anything similar. The system is as robust as HMS Victory, you may hear some creaking every now and then, but the structure holds. There is more confrontation within the parties than between the parties. Our lot's approval ratings may not be stellar, as YouGov's most recent tracker shows, but we're not even remotely near a civil war, a popular uprising or a revolutionary coup.

There are some constants here. Keir Starmer is just marginally more popular than Rishi Sunak. Rishi Sunak is more popular than the Conservative Party. The Labour Party is more popular than Keir Starmer. YouGov don't even bother to include Ed Davey in the line-up, because even LibDem voters don't give a fucking shit about how popular Ed is. Then all the second fiddles, except Jeremy Hunt and Sue-Ellen Braverman, have really low name recognition. Even Yvette Cooper, who has been around since 'Titanic', not the Titanic, has a lot of undecideds. Then I guess Jezza and Sue-Ellen would actually be happier with lower name recognition, as all they get is strong negatives. For some obscure reason, YouGov felt they also had to test Lindsay Hoyle, who quite fittingly got more 'Lindsay Who?' replies than anything else. You might also have blurred memories of something from the distant past, last January actually, Rishi Sunak's infamous Five Goals. Omnisis have asked their panel how they think Rishi is doing with these, and it's a fucking disaster.

I have to be honest with you here, the people never believed Rishi would meet these goals. Polls fielded way back in January are evidence of it, when panels even added insult to injury, saying that they believed Labour would be better at achieving all this than the Conservatives. Now, six months on and midway through the timespan assigned by Rishi himself, the verdict is clear. Even when Rishi's pledges looked like shoe-ins. For example, he never actually promised to stop the small boats, just to have Commons pass legislation that would enable the government to do so. And even that is now dead in the water, if you pardon the pun, because Conservative MPs are busier infighting than thinking. So you might ask the metaphysical question too, is this all about a loss of trust in the politicians, or a loss of faith in politics? Or go one step beyond and ask the chicken-and-egg metaphysical. Did loss of trust trigger loss of faith, or the other way round? Now there is another side to this vision. Pollsters who attempt to accurately measure the plausible turnout at the next election usually find summat between 70% and 75%. Probably a wee smitch overestimated, as the best we had in recent years was 69% in 2017, but we had 71% in 1997, so who can really tell?

The thing is, when Rishi Sunak gave these five goals, he didn’t give any exact targets,

he didn’t give any deadline. And at the end he said, “we’ll either achieve this or we won’t”.

(Chris McCausland, Have I Got News For You?, 19 May 2023)

Rishi is like this earnest and industrious little chinchilla that works really really hard,

and then there’s this big looming gorilla behind him that just takes up all of the space

and all of the light and he just, you know, he can’t get on his wheel. It’s a shame.

(Ruth Davidson, Have I Got News For You?, 2 June 2023)

The trends of the historic 'Preferred Prime Minister' polling have evolved quite significantly in recent weeks. Believers in the unique strength of the Westminster System will be chuffed to know that 'Neither Of These Fucking Clowns' is no longer the British public's choice, and by quite a wide margin now. But Conservative supporters will be miffed when they realise this has mostly benefited Keir Starmer, not their own Wunderkind. Labour voters will notice that Keir Starmer's rating here is still below Labour's voting intentions. But it has always been, even when Labour were quite implausibly leading by 30% and change.

There are also some quite disturbing results for both parties in this week's delivery from Redfield & Wilton, who ask that same question every week. 63% of Conservative voters think Rishi is the best, and 19% choose Keir. While 71% of Labour voters chose Keir and 17% chose Rishi. Then Labour may find some solace in the LibDem voters' choice, that goes 60% to Keir vs 19% to Rishi. Last week's Omnisis poll is more reassuring for the Conservative Party, as their voters went 81% Rishi to 6% Keir, while Labour voters are in the same neck of the woods as in the Redfield & Wilton poll, going 70% Keir to 10% Rishi. In the meanwhile, Savanta updated their very personal approach to 'best Prime Minister' in the May iteration of their political trackers.

Admittedly, this array of items has little, if anything, to do with either man's abilities in government. Though you might also argue that some carry a subliminal message, like their ability to repay £5 you lent them being a predictor of their ability to put the national debt under control. Or likelihood to tip their server revealing their belief, or lack thereof, in fair wages and redistribution of wealth and income. Bear in mind too that Savanta devised this question when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. The whole rationale behind it seems to have been pitting the Pub Bore In Red against the Pub Clown In Blue. Si it probably has outlived it's sell-by date now, unless you want to prove that the Powerpoint Whiz Kid In Blue is even less attractive than the Pub Bore. Which is definitely not the right angle of attack when there are so many more relevant things to say about both.

I didn’t lie. I revised the parameters of my promise. Which is not lying, it’s politics.

(Francis Underwood, House Of Cards: Chapter 4, 2013)

We have to be very careful with liberal-minded do-gooders, especially on a Saturday night.

(Andy Dalziel, Dalziel & Pascoe: A Clubbable Woman, 1996)

It's now quite common wisdom, to the point of being an oven-ready cliché for running-on-fumes columnists, that British politics have Americanised over time. And not in a good way. The most obvious symptom is how we import American-made ideologies and then try and wrap them around British realities without having properly digested them. Visible examples, that never fail to trigger controversy, are gender ideology and Critical Race Theory. These are not an easy fit for the UK because different histories, political traditions and modes of social regulation produce different attitudes, ways to assess the past and levels of readiness for change. Or, more accurately, the UK has a relatively low level of acceptance for imported ideologies and theories, which is reflected in the never ending culture wars, also an imported American social construct. A few days ago, Sex Matters published a full analysis of a poll conducted by People Polling, surveying some allegedly controversial questions raised about single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010, and here's the summary of what they found.

It's interesting to see that Sex Matters chose the most confrontational wording, explicitly using 'exclude', and yet got strong support for the 'exclusion' in all cases. You can only wonder what the results would have been with a 'kinder', and probably more convoluted, wording. Their detailed analysis shows that even the TikTok Generation are ready to accept most forms of 'exclusion'. Similarly, Labour and LibDem voters don't support the 'inclusive' options, even if both parties' leaderships do. There's a lesson to be learned from that in the run-up to the incoming snap general, and the aftermath of the Spanish local elections. But we'll burn that bridge when we come to it further down the road. Deltapoll have fielded another poll in May, that covers a totally different aspect of the now familiar controversies, focused on how parents of children aged 12-16, in England only, see the inclusion of controversial topics in the curriculum. I will focus on just one part, that dealing with the Relationships, Health and Sex Education (RHSE) curriculum and gender issues. Some core principles first.

The second item in this poll is quite amazing. Or, more accurately, the fact that it has to be asked is. The reality is that English schools have a legal obligation to publish the principles of their RHSE approach, and to disclose all materials to the parents. Which some, possibly a lot, don't abide by, as the Department for Education had to remind them of these obligations and start a review of RHSE materials in England. Admittedly, removing your kid from RHSE classes is also illegal, so It's kind of a deuce in this political football, and both sides get nul points. However, English parents clearly agree with the government's approach here, which sent teachers' unions squealing and cosplaying victim. Obviously there is nothing fundamentally right-wing or even 'fascist', as some activists call everything that does not kowtow to their ideology, in supporting safeguards and parental oversight. Unless you have something untoward and potentially harmful to hide. Deltapoll then surveyed more precisely defined issues, all of which are at the core of demands commonly expressed by gender ideology supporters.

The question about Pride Week shows that English parents are not raging homophobes who beg for the return of Section 28. It's important to view the rest of the poll in that light, as this is an accusation routinely thrown around by 'inclusion and diversity' activists. But parents also clearly oppose their kids being taught the Acts Of Faith of gender ideology. Though the poll quite cautiously worded it 'telling' and not 'teaching'. The reality though is that many teachers actually take this as actual 'teaching' of irrefutable peer-reviewed scientific facts, which they are not. Or else you're opening the door to creationism, flat-Earthism and War Of The Worlds being taught as 'science'. In my opinion, all this poll proves is that English parents have a healthy conception of appropriateness and safeguarding. We've all been teenagers at some point, except Jacob Rees-Mogg, so we all remember how easily influenceable we were at that age. Unless our parents has already taught us freedom of thought, and questioning authority and peer pressure, which mine did. So who can really blame today's parents for voicing their concerns in this chaotic brave new world of ours?

They're spoilt, stupid little brats. Have you ever looked into the eyes of one of them?

It's like looking into the eyes of a goat. There's nothing going on in there. They're like sheep.

(Paul Delacourte, Law & Order: Baby, It's You, 1997)

Of course it has to be adversarial. Everything is. The whole point is to destroy the other guy.

(Julian Spector, Law & Order: Empire, 1999)

My current snapshot of voting intentions includes the full array of polls for this week. From Redfield & Wilton's Monday Delivery to Omnisis' Friday Delivery, through the latest efforts from Savanta, Deltapoll and Techne UK. Which delivers a reasonable super-sample of 8,499 with a theoretical margin of error of 1.06%. And it again shows Labour with a comfortable lead over the Conservatives, far more than needed to stay safely away from hung Parliament territory. There is no surprise in this, even in these stunning times when Owen Jones has appointed himself the Conservatives' electoral agent, and Boris Johnson has become Labour's. Both out of a total lack of principle, and on an attention-seeking binge to harm a leader they don't like. So far, it looks like Boris is better at that game than Owen, as Labour are doing almost as well right now as they did a month ago. The SNP transitioning into a smouldering heap of smoking ruins also helps, of course.

I still haven't included Northern Ireland, because of a lack of Commons polls there. But I still live in the hope that someday NI polls will come. For now, the breakdown of voting intentions in the regions of England is also quite interesting, and encouraging for Labour. They are, quite remarkably, leading in all eight regions, though they enjoy an outright majority in only one. The best part for Labour is still coming first in the three regions of the South, even if their lead has shrunk to single digits, and about half their average lead across England. Thanks to the elements of gerrymandering embedded in the 2023 Periodic Review, the South has become the biggest reservoir of plausible gains for Labour, and they still need it in times like these, when their positions appear less solid in the Midlands and Yorkshire.

And, quite unsurprisingly, we have heard more from the proportional representation (PR) lobby in the metropolitan 'progressive' press, this time from Andy Burnham in The Hipstershire Gazette. I will not take you through all the arguments against PR again, my job here is done. I will just stress again the amount of ideological delusion needed to believe that you will cure the flaws of the current first past the post (FPTP) system by adopting an even worse one. What Andy Burnham and others of a like persuasion conveniently forget is that this should be a question asked directly to the people. But maybe they don't intend too, and imagine they can force it down our throats by a vote in Parliament. The reason may be that they don't like what the general public have to say when they are asked directly, as Omnisis just did.

Whichever way you spin it, this poll can't be described as anything but inconclusive. The British public, in their infinite wisdom, are neither enamoured with FPTP nor with PR. It would be interesting to hold a referendum on this some time during the next parliamentary term. Having half of Labour campaigning for FPTP and the other half for PR would be quite a fun sight. But, even with the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats supporting PR, and only the Conservatives unambiguously supporting FPTP, I doubt this referendum would actually repeal FPTP. Remember that, the only time the British electorate were actually asked, they conclusively chose to keep FPTP, by a much bigger margin than they chose Brexit. Probably because Labour was already split over the choice between Alternative Voting and FPTP, and thusly bravely sat on the fence. Admittedly, the Liberal Democrats made a fucking dog's breakfast of their campaign and never made their case. Notwithstanding, there is a lot to be said in favour of a genuine two-round system, as in France, with the two rounds held a week or two apart. In this configuration, the parties have the time to strike transparent deals and alliances between the two rounds, and the electorate have the time to assess them and make an informed choice. That's what should be on the table next time, if you want to avoid both the brutality of FPTP and the inefficiency of PR.

Look, when you vote, you are exercising political authority. You’re using force.

And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.

(Jean Rasczak, Starship Troopers, 1997)

People who think somebody’s out to get them are usually right.

(John Munch, Law & Order: Sideshow, 1999)

You really have to wonder why anyone would want to become an MP these days, when they're facing being rehomed into a facility that is in a worse state of disrepair than a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, complete with leaky pipes and all. And, unlike the Royal Navy, they don't have a second one to cannibalise for spares. There are even quite convincing odds that the whole thing will end up crumbling into dust before the snap general, yet thousands are flocking to get in. And 650 will, or 643ish depending on Sinn Féin's performance. Right now, my model predicts a 143-seat working majority for a Labour government, again assuming that Sinn Féin and the SDLP hold their current number of seats, and that the SDLP de facto take the Labour whip.

The breakdown of the English seats outwith London shines a light on Labour's potential weaknesses, and also strengths that could turn into weaknesses on only a wee swing in voting intentions. Labour still has some difficulties in the rural parts of the Midlands and Yorkshire. They are also predicted to bag fewer seats than the Conservatives in the South East, despite getting a larger share of the popular vote. This is not an unprecedented situation. The most recent real life example is Labour getting more seats in Yorkshire in 2019, though the Conservatives bagged more votes. This kind of situation is bound to happen again if the boundaries are somewhat tweaked and the gap between the two parties' votes is small. Happened in Yorkshire last time aboot and could happen somewhere in the South next time.

The recarved constituencies spawned by the 2023 Boundary Review would not alter the result by much. Labour would enjoy a very similar 145-seat working majority, and there would be only the usual shifts from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives. So the situation looks again really good for Labour, if you set aside their genetically engineered propensity for podal self-mutilation. Shooting themselves in the foot, if you prefer. And that's just where they are now, rats-in-a-sacking for seats in regions where the Boundary Review has vaporised some. Which is admittedly slightly less daft than the Conservatives doing the same in regions where the number of seats has increased. So maybe Keir Starmer should now create a Relocation Task Force, for MPs who lost selection in the North but have an open seat waiting for them in the South. After all, Jeremy Corbyn rehomed Jared O'Mara from a bar in Sheffield to the House of Commons, and then Claudia Webbe from Islington to Leceister and nobody minded. All Keir Starmer has to do is turn the process around, an Underground Railway from North to South, and he will make many happy bunnies. Simples.

Quite ironically, the gerrymandering of the South is predicted to benefit Labour again on current numbers, as it would more than make up for the seats lost in the North and Midlands due to a smaller number of seats in these regions after the boundary changes. The supposedly magic trick was to carve slightly smaller constituencies in the bluest parts, and slightly larger ones in the few red zones of the South. Which would have maximised the number of notional Conservative seats on the 2019 results, and minimised potential losses, but is also the very definition of dummymandering. The situation where the gerrymandering disproportionately benefits the former opposition when voters swing towards them. Nothing says it better than the projections for the South East, where the Conservatives would lose seats under the new boundaries and current voting intentions, not really the expected outcome of the Boundary Review

So far, only 60 incumbents have already announced they will not seek re-election at the snap general of 2024, while 74 had stood down in 2019. I include Boris Johnson in the leaving 60, even if he has said that he is just leaving Parliament 'for now'. But CCHQ and Number 10 have the final say on selections, and I can't imagine one set of circumstances where they would allow Bozo to sneak in through the back door in another constituency. Though that might have been the original plan when Nadine Dorries announced she was resigning her safe seat with immediate effect. Another 7 have been deselected by their parties but not yet made their future plans clear. There's a fun side to the situation, with persistent rumours that Jeremy Corbyn might stand as an independent in Islington North. Which probably just means that a handful of people are trying to bait him into standing, which would be a fucking daft move for more reasons than Labour currently have MPs. The main one being that Keir Starmer has enough resources to crush Corbyn in such a situation, as happened before to almost all rebels standing as independents against their old party's official candidate. Surely not the legacy Jezza wants to leave behind.

I have a great belief in the people of this country. I think they know the kind of government they want.

A government that’s firm and fair. A government that is not afraid to govern.

(Francis Urquhart, House Of Cards, 1990)

You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going. You just got to keep moving forward.

(Simon Brenner, ER: Dream Runner, 2009)

After a major upset at the English local elections, we have now witnessed another at the Northern Ireland local elections. It matters not just for its immediate impact, Sinn Féin becoming the first party in local government after becoming the first party in Stormont last year, but also for its plausible fallout, putting Stormont back together and at last getting a functional Executive after years of DUP obstruction. Since Sinn Féin have also become the first party in votes in the Republic of Ireland three years ago, they are now Top Dog all across the Emerald Isle, which is quite historic. In Northern Ireland, they are now ahead of the DUP by the same 7.7% margin at both the Stormont and Council elections. We would have quite an interesting situation if Sinn Féin bagged a similar lead at the incoming snap general election. Below is the summary of these elections. Note that we had one voting intentions poll before the elections, and it was quite accurate, as were the last two such polls fielded in England. Councils in Northern Ireland are technically all under no overall control, thanks to the use of single transferable vote. The numbers reflect in how many Councils Sinn Féin and the DUP are the first party. More interestingly, the Republican parties now have a majority in five Councils, and the Unionist parties in only two. The non-aligned Alliance Party holds the balance of power in the other four.

I will try now the same theoretical exercise I indulged in after the English locals. A comparison between how a number of select Commons constituencies voted at the 2019 general election, and how their constituent wards voted this month. Which, I have to stress it again, has absolutely no predictive value for the next general election, but can help identifying some underlying trends. And possibly the distant likelihood of some of these seats changing hands next year. In the first batch are Belfast East, a DUP-Alliance marginal, and Belfast North, a Sinn Féin-DUP marginal. Both remarkable as only three candidates stood in either in 2019, a clear sign of pacts designed to favour the best-placed candidates. Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a perennial Sinn Féin-UUP marginal held by Sinn Féin by only 57 votes in 2019. And finally Foyle, a Sinn Féin-SDLP battleground covering the city of Derry, which switched from ultra-marginal in 2017 to a massive SDLP gain in 2019.

There are significant differences between the two votes, because pacts are not taboo at general elections, but cease to exist at local elections because the almost-proportional system invites a free-for-all. But we can still see some patterns emerging from the fog. My tenner is definitely on the Alliance gaining Belfast East, if the same anti-DUP pact is enforced as in 2019. Which Sinn Féin and the SDLP should agree to, if only for the symbolic value of the DUP losing its last surviving seat in the capital. I also definitely see Sinn Féin holding Belfast East and Fermanagh and South Tyrone, but also gaining back Foyle from the SDLP, which might cause some problems in the first seat of my second batch. East Londonderry, just next door down the A2 from Derry city centre, the only DUP seat where the Unionist parties don't have a majority of the popular vote, and where the other parties were daft enough to end up with a perfect three-way split of the opposition vote in 2019. Lagan Valley, a supposedly safe DUP seat that might have a surprise in store next time aboot. North Down, the only current Alliance seat and a top DUP target. South Antrim, a perennial DUP-UUP battleground that might also not go the way the Unionists expect.

Sinn Féin definitely have a shot at a gain in East Londonderry, if the SDLP agree to stand down despite coming ahead by a hair in 2019. The foreseeable bump on the road is the SDLP wanting to trade it against Sinn Féin standing down in Foyle despite ending up first at the locals. Their key argument being that Foyle's current MP is Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, so there's no way the SDLP can lose that seat. In Lagan Valley, the Alliance Party have a very good case for the Republican parties to stand down as they did in the neighbouring North Down in 2019. Only the Alliance Party have a chance of gaining that seat, and it would be a powerful symbol of change as the sitting MP is Jeffrey Donaldson, the current DUP leader. Sinn Féin and the SDLP would surely love nothing more than sending the DUP into their third leadership contest in as many years, so they know what they have to do. Then I see North Down as reasonably safe for the Alliance Party, as the UUP have no compelling motive to stand down in a seat that was perennially theirs for years before Sylvia Hermon left the party over their alliance with the English Conservatives in 2010. Finally South Antrim has the potential to be an embarrassing upset for the Unionists. Just as in Lagan Valley, which is coincidentally directly to the South on the other side of Belfast, only the Alliance Party has a credible chance of gaining the seat, which has never escaped one Unionist party or the other since 1885. It might be the only opportunity the opposition will ever have, so it would be daft to miss it.

To understand our future, we have to remember the past and the ones who caused it all.

(Gaal Dornick, Foundation: The Emperor’s Peace, 2021)

We didn’t make the system. We just try and survive within it.

(Adam Schiff, Law & Order: Charm City, 1996)

Pollsters love polling Scotland, especially when they smell blood, which has been the permanent state of affairs since Nicola Sturgeon's surprise exit. We have a new Full Scottish poll from Survation on behalf of True North, a think tank close to the Alba Party. Another one from Ipsos for STV News, that delivers surprisingly different results. Maybe it isn't actually surprising, as a cursory look through past Full Scottish polling reveals that Ipsos's Scottish Political Monitor Polling is, more often than not, an outlier in comparison to other pollsters' findings in the same time frame. Finally, Redfield & Wilton again polled Scotland, as they do now on a monthly basis. So we have multiple updates on the usual stuff, Independence, Westminster and Holyrood, plus some extra bits that pollsters like to throw in every now and then to spicen the broth. As usual, the last batch of IndyRef polls contradict each other, but even Ipsos finding an outright majority for Yes hasn't made the overall trend much better. Though polls are probably irrelevant, now that we've had an SNP minister setting the scene for a screeching reverse ferret about DevoMax, Labour's plan to drag Scottish Independence into the woodchipper. And a prominent MSP doubling down on his earlier call to tone down the pro-Independence rhetoric because, ye ken, we must be kind to Unionists and our future is the next chapter of devolution, not Independence.

Rather than focusing on one IndyRef poll, it's smarter and more realistic to take a step back and look at the big picture. Which shows that 15 out of 17 IndyRef polls conducted after Nicola Sturgeon's resignation have No leading, as do 8 out of 9 conducted after Humza Yousaf's accession. The current snapshot of IndyRef polling, based on the four polls fielded in May and June, is another half-full-half-empty story. It has improved on what we had a month ago, it is better than what we achieved in 2014, it still falls short of what is needed to reassure us about the outcome of an hypothetical second referendum. And whatever the polls say does not change the reality of the situation. That the English Government, whoever leads it, is highly unlikely to agree on a Section 30 Order in the foreseeable future. That the Yes Movement does not have a consistent and unified strategy to make it happen. That the Scottish Greens prioritise their own ideological prejudice over the unity of the Yes Movement. That the SNP's special independence convention is unlikely to come up with an innovative strategy that would break the deadlock.

It is also quite clear that the SNP should have known better than having a brainwanking session behind closed doors, and defending their decision quite clumsily. Which definitely does not send a message of diversity and inclusion to the rest of the broader Yes Movement, on top of a poor choice of date. This snapshot clearly shows why The Scottish Pravda should avoid sensationalist triumphalist headlines about support for Independence being at 53%. Because it is not. This ill-inspired headline is even more surprising when you see that The National also published, on the same day, a much more informed and relevant analysis of what contradictory polls actually mean for the next general election. Which does not look really good for the SNP, as we will see below the fold. Maybe it's time for the SNP to listen to Alex Salmond and his magic master plan to get a majority for the pro-Independence parties at the incoming snap general election. Which will of course never happen, and Big Eck knows it. But it's still fun to see him taking the piss out of his old party.

The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed.

(Simone de Beauvoir)

Scots feel an affinity to people from Northumberland and Newcastle, and basically the bits

of England that used to be Scotland, and they’re ours and we’re going to take them back.

(Ruth Davidson, Have I Got News For You?, 2 June 2023)

Not so long ago, I fucking laffed my arse out in disbelief if I saw the Scottish subsample of a GB-wide poll having the SNP on 40% and Labour on 35%. Now I don't even bat an eyelash if they have the SNP on 30% and Labour on 45%. That's how bad it has become. Even the wonkiest outliers have acquired an air of credibility. Or summat. I have included the current snapshot of Scottish voting intentions, and the seat projections it spawns on both set of boundaries, in an earlier paragraph, so I won't rant about that now. Other than to say that YouGov's gloomy take on the SNP's chances might be closer to the truth than they want to believe. All we need now is another glimpse at the trends shown by the Full Scottish polls conducted since the 2019 general election, with all the May Polls included, and the one in June too. And it just confirms what we already knew. It doesn't look good for the SNP and it looks good for Labour. With more than a few crumbs left for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, who are plausibly en route to holding all their Scottish seats. That's what's in store when the SNP's lead over the second party has shrunk from 20% to 8% on average this month. Or, if you want to make it sound even worse, the SNP's lead over Labour has shrunk from 26% to 8%. Whatever floats your ferry.

I was summat surprised by some comments made about the most recent Full Scottish polls. To the tune that Labour shouldn't count their chickens before they come home to roast, as they're not snatching any votes from the SNP. Aye, richt. So the SNP have gone down from 45% of the vote to the mid 30s, which is like losing one quarter of their voters, and nobody knows where they've gone. Just like those fucking £600k, but that's another story for another day. Anyway, if you remember my earlier musings, my point has always been that Labour first coalesced the bulk of the Unionist vote, and then started biting chunks of the center-left vote off the SNP. Two stages, the first one pretty much done, and the second one still a work in progress. Never said that they got all these extra votes from the SNP. Then the pollsters are the judges here, as they all crosstab voting intentions with the 2019 remembered vote. What the previous Full Scottish from Redfield & Wilton and the new one from Survation, the last two published before that column in The Scottish Pravda denying that SNP voters are switching to Labour, have found here is strikingly similar. So now we can do the maths. We know how many votes each party got in 2019, and the polls tell us which way these votes would go at the next election. Then it's just three multiplications and an addition to get the evidence we need. Not even close to Rishi Sunak's dream level of maths proficiency.

So let's see what we have, based on the average of the two polls. Labour is predicted to snatch 124k votes off the Conservatives and 83k off the Liberal Democrats, a total of 207k from the other Unionist parties. And... drum roll... 207k off the SNP. Same amount, and I'm positive about it, Excel did it. So much for 'Labour not taking votes from the SNP'. They are, and that only proves one basic principle of maths. If you get a lower share of a bigger pot, you end up with the same slice of the pizza. Simples. Labour are now bracing themselves for the inevitably incoming by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, though I'm not sure that sending Jackie Baillie there is their best unique selling point. Now that Margaret Ferrier has lost her appeal against her suspension, and Commons have voted to confirm it despite some token opposition from the Conservative benches, we still must wait for the results of the recall petition. It's open until 31 July, so that very plausibly pushes the by-election into the autumn, so possibly to 19 October if Lindsay Hoyle has any wicked sense of humour. But, whatever the date, Labour will gain the seat back, don't even think of putting a fiver on the SNP holding it. They will be destined for an even bigger crash landing if Margaret Ferrier decides to stand as an independent and splits the vote. The SNP might even end up fourth in a four-way match, behind Ferrier and the Conservatives. Mark me, folks.

Actually, it turns out metaphysical speculation is stupid and this has all been a huge waste of time.

(Ludwig Wittgenstein)

If you’re using your authority as a foot on the neck, you’d better have a leg to stand on.

(Adam Schiff, Law & Order: Admissions, 1999)

When the ostrich buries its head in the sand, the coyote sneaks in from behind and fucks it in the arse. Or summat. We've had three May Polls, and one of The Gloom In June, surveying voting intentions for the next Scottish Parliament election. True to a now familiar pattern, they contradicted each other. Or, rather, we had three, two from Redfield & Wilton and one from Survation, going in one direction, which is the direction shown by the trends of such polling. And one, from Ipsos, going in the opposite direction. Which is the very definition of an outlier, and surely why The Scottish Pravda and the SNP accounts on Twitter devoted more coverage to the Ipsos poll than to the other three. Because, ye ken, we can't let bad polls overshadow the stunning news that Nicola Sturgeon has passed her driving theory test. But even Ipsos couldn't escape the fact that the SNP's predicted vote shares are down on the 2021 election results, and also significantly down on their previous poll, held six months ago, and already quite outlierish in its findings. So bear with me if I'm more inclined to believe polls that put the SNP's constituency vote in the high 30s than one putting them in the low 40s.

What's more relevant in these polls, even the Ipsos one, is that their regional crosstabs consistently show Labour overperforming within the confines of Auld Strathclyde. Which is definitely not new news, just a confirmation. Even the Ipsos poll predicts a massive loss of SNP constituencies in Central Scotland. Redfield & Wilton and Survation see the same happening in Glasgow and West Scotland. Even Humza Yousaf's seat in Glasgow Pollok has become an SNP-Lab marginal, and more likely to turn Red than to stay Yellow. The SNP don't have a magic recipe to prevent this from happening, even if they discouraged the Greens from fielding vanity candidates all across the nation. Ironically, the only way the SNP could deny Labour just one of their predicted gains would be to stand down in Glasgow Kelvin and offer Patrick Harvie his own constituency seat. Which would be milk and honey to Patrick's immense ego, but would not preclude disaster elsewhere. As three of the last four polls predict, with the Yellow-Green axis losing the pro-Independence majority by quite a large margin.

One of the oddities of the Scottish proto-political landscape is that The Scottish Pravda has found it a good idea to offer shelter and expenses to Owen Jones, the icon of the oppressed and marginalised white English do-gooder metropolitan middle-class. Because Scots love nothing more than being lectured by an entitled opportunist who thinks he knows best because he spent two years in Falkirk as a wee bairn. Now that Wee Owen has lectured the SNP on what they should do in the House of Commons to help the English metropolitan loony left, I fully expect him to write to Humza Yousaf with a full draft of the SNP's manifesto for the next Scottish Parliament election. Which would probably not be more extravagant than Humza's own version. And I want you now to consider the impossible. A Labour-Greens-Liberal Democrats coalition government after the next Holyrood election. Impossible, you say? Then just ask yourself what would be the right price to get the Greens on board, living as their true selves, middle-class drag-loving devolutionists. Probably much less than Labour would be willing to pay. Mark me again, mates.

Do you remember when salt and vinegar was blue? And cheese and onion was green, and then

one day we all woke up and it was just the other way around. And no one ever explained why.

(Chris McCausland, Have I Got News For You?, 19 May 2023)

Welshmen weren't born to be right. They were born to be bloody tragic.

(Andy Dalziel, Dalziel & Pascoe: A Clubbable Woman, 1996)

Redfield & Wilton went to Cardiff last month, liked their tour of Torchwood HQ, and went back this month. For their second Full Welsh, polling the same array of issues as the first one. Welsh independence, Westminster, Senedd and whatnot. They first found that the Welsh public is slowly moving towards Independence. Quite slowly actually, as the main factor is people moving from undecided to Yes, rather than from No to Yes in statistically significant numbers. If you remove abstainers and undecideds, the very last poll has found 35.4% Yes to 64.6% No. Quite similar to what Scottish polls found in 2012. There is still a lot of progress to make, so let's hope Wales will have a more united pro-Independence movement than Scotland. And a more determined 'vehicle for Independence' party. And won't let it turn into some nasty civil war between Unionists and Nationalists.

Not everything is perfect in Wales though. Looks like we must brace ourselves for a change of seasons, with Plaid Cymru in turmoil after Adam Price resigned over accusations of a toxic culture enabling sexual harassment. This hasn't had a lot of impact yet, as Price was indeed praised for taking one for the team, but Plaid Cymru's voting intentions are no longer improving. They're even going down a wee smitch, as do Labour's. YouGov also polled Wales, in the same time frame as Redfield & Wilton. They just polled the Westminster voting intentions and, quite predictably, did not find the same results. Notwithstanding, the updated trends of Full Welsh polls, discounting subsamples from GB-wide polls, show the same kind of movements as in England. A Labour slump mirroring a small Conservative surge and a more significant one for the Liberal Democrats. With the added Welsh thing that these swings also bring Plaid Cymru slightly down, and even their new leader Rhun ap Iorwerth probably can't do much about that in the short term.

These slightly declining voting intentions do not spell doom and gloom for Labour yet. The two brand new Full Welsh poll may differ in their assessment of vote shares, but both still predict a massive Labour victory and big Conservative losses. Even the Liberal Democrats are in the right zone for a come back in Brecon and Radnorshire. Just on the current boundaries, though, as they won't be so lucky on the new ones, that have added big chunks of rural Blue territory to the new Brecon, Radnor and Cuwtawe seat. In a quite ironic twist of fate, the recarving has actually turned the only Con-Lib marginal in Wales into the safest blue seat there under the incoming 32-seat boundaries.

Labour can also consider themselves lucky that Reform UK still hold some influence in Wales, as they do across the North of England. In both cases, Reform UK have become a better shield for Labour than the Liberal Democrats, against the fallout of a better Conservative performance. The Conservatives also have their own inconsistencies to blame for that sort of situation. What is the point of the Conservatives when Reform UK are better defenders of the True Brexit Religion? What is the point of the Conservatives when Labour agree with them on immigration and offer better prospects for the lower social grades? What is the point of Conservatives when the Red Wall is rising again and even extending into once Deep Blue pockets of rural Wales? One thing's for sure, we may not know the answers, but Rishi Sunak certainly doesn't either.

If life always turned out the way we expected, what would be the point of living?

(Jack Harkness, Torchwood: Something Borrowed, 2008)

It’s going wild. Everybody’s out drinking, but nobody knows whether it’s a party or a wake.

(Gwen Cooper, Torchwood: Miracle Day, 2011)

Just like with the Scottish Parliament, we also have had contradictory polls about the next Senedd election. One from Redfield & Wilton, that was quite disappointing for Labour, and one from YouGov that was more favourable, but also quite a killjoy for Plaid Cymru, which is probably an unavoidable consequence of it being better for Labour. But the general trends of Senedd polling are summatly different, as they show both Labour and Plaid Cymru losing ground, and the Conservatives gaining back some. Which may be related to Plaid Cymru's aforementioned problems. And possibly also to Mark Drakeford advocating summat similar to the Scottish gender self-ID bill for Wales. In unrelated news, there were also local elections in Spain a few days ago, which saw massive losses for the left-wing governing coalition, their first electoral test since they passed the Spanish variant of gender self-ID. Could ideoleg rhywedd be as much of a vote killer as ideòlas gnè? Or ideología de género?

The Redfield & Wilton poll showed Labour down on their 2021 result on both votes, with Plaid Cymru down on the constituency vote and up on the list vote. The only factor working in the favour of both is the Liberal Democrats siphoning a fair share of the Conservative vote. At the end of the day, that would be enough to make the Conservative lose seats in every direction to Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats, thusly preserving the Labour government and their co-operation deal with Plaid Cymru.

On the other hand, the YouGov poll predicted a Rainbow Senedd, with the Greens, Reform UK and the Abolish The Welsh Parliament party bagging seats for the first time outwith defections. But this time Labour would bag an outright majority, which does not mean any deal with Plaid Cymru would end, as it is politically expedient for both parties to go on with it. More fragmented voting intentions here definitely help Labour, as they are predicted to just get a similar vote share to 2021. So the main conclusion from this polling is that we shouldn't expect anything even remotely resembling a political earthquake in Wales.

But we already know that both polls are obsolete, as they stick to the current Welsh electoral law, with the familiar AMS system based on two separate votes. Even if it is still a work in progress, legislation changing the electoral law will pass long before the next Senedd election. Only the Conservatives oppose it and they don't have the votes to defeat it. As it is a fully devolved matter, the English Government will not try and block it, especially if the vote comes after the snap general election and the accession of a Labour government in London. The next Senedd will be elected on strict proportional representation in six-member constituencies, using the highest averages method. The perfect choice for Labour, as both the method and the small size of the constituencies mechanically deliver a significant bonus for the first party in a situation like this, where they get roughly twice the vote of the second party. The small constituencies instantly create a high de facto threshold for representation, while the highest averages method totally games the system. Just do the maths, it's easy, and you'll see that 37%-18%-16% vote shares deliver 4-1-1 seats in a six-member constituency. So Labour could very plausibly get an outright majority under the new rules, with vote shares similar to the YouGov poll. QED.

Just because you can’t understand doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

(Jack Harkness, Torchwood: End Of Days, 2006)

Did you know there’s a gents in Huddersfield that’s a listed building?

(Dick Elgood, Dalziel & Pascoe: Deadheads, 1997)

The most momentous pre-election upset in England is Green MP Caroline Lucas deciding not to seek re-election in the Brighton Pavilion constituency she represents since 2010. Or that's what The Hipstershire Gazette wants you to believe, publishing the imperfect mash of an hagiography and an obituary. I definitely understand why Caroline would want to spend more time with the Just Stop Oil TikTokers, gluing herself to a motorway and spraying paint on fragile flowers, as they are the most representative cross-section of the metropolitan middle-class Green electorate. But, as usual, we have to look at the flip side of the card. How the votes and Council seats have evolved in the wards covering Caroline's constituency between the 2019 and 2023 local elections. The 2019 vote was quite similar to what happened six months later at Boris's snap general. So Caroline must have taken the 2023 vote as a very bad omen, as the Green Party took a massive drubbing in these wards, like pretty much all over the Brighton and Hove City Council. I'm still not saying that locals are an accurate predictor of the next general, but sometimes you have to take the hint, even if all remaining Green Councillors in the city come from your constituency, haven't you? And gracefully bow out before Labour unseat you.

When they're done shedding tears over Caroline Lucas, and propagandising for proportional representation, The Hipstershire Gazette relentlessly hammer a familiar tune home. That the Liberal Democrats are the next Kings Of The Wild Frontier, more prosaically the Outer Commuter Belt. And there is certainly some truth in this, even if Ed Davey tends to hyperinflate the likelihood of massive LibDem gains at the very heart of Conservative heartlands in the Home Counties. Ed's talking points, and many a past and present column in the metropolitan 'progressive' press, rest on the sincerely-held belief that local elections are good predictors of where the next general election will go. Based only on this year's locals in England. As in many such cases, there is a fine line between belief and wishful thinking, but a recent Savanta poll shows that a majority of Brits share that belief.

There is little to be gained here from dissecting the results of past local elections. In 2019, the Conservatives suffered massive losses, Labour slight losses and the Liberal Democrats enjoyed huge gains. And we all know how the snap election went six months later. In 2017, the Conservatives bagged significant gains while both Labour and the Liberal Democrats recorded heavy losses. Yet the Conservatives totally fucked up the snap general held just five weeks later. The only case in recent history where locals and general delivered the same verdict was 2015, but locals and the general were held on the same day that year, so you can hardly call that conclusive of anything other than voters being consistent. So what about 2024? The scheduled date for the locals is also the earliest reasonably possible date for the snap general, and it would be fucking daft of Rishi Sunak to gamble on holding both on the same day. We also don't know how the approximate 'previous election' went, as the standard election cycle says it would have been 2020, which never happened because of Covid. The next least bad approximation thusly has to be 2021, when the Conservatives bagged big gains and Labour big losses. This was at the height of the vaccine-rollout euphoria, and it did fit the patterns of general election voting intentions at the time. But this was never tested at a real election, so it also has little if any probative value. Then we're back where we started. Reading the chicken's entrails.

Do they have toffee hammers any more? Don’t suppose so. Probably banned by those clowns in Brussels.

(Andy Dalziel, Dalziel & Pascoe: A Clubbable Woman, 1996)

No one in their right mind ever had a bad word to say about a potato.

(Nadine Dorries)

On a Nadine-related matter, Survation probed the loins and brains of Rural England, that quasi-mythical subset of Middle England that stretches scythe-like from Downton Abbey to Badger's Drift and on to the forlorn marches of Wessex. Reputedly the safest reservoir of votes for the Conservative Party, though the amount of shit in drinking water might lead some to reconsider. There is an interesting snapshot in that poll, on how the panel voted in 2019, how they would vote now, and in which directions the 2019 tribes have gone. The important finding is a 17% swing from the Conservatives to Labour among this part of the electorate. Which is higher than the current UK-wide swing, just 13% in my current snapshot of polls. It is indeed quite sensational, as Rural England is the part the Conservatives always took for granted, and the one supposedly most reluctant to endorse the opposition parties.

The regional breakdown of the voting intentions illustrate the major caveat to the poll's findings. Switches away from the Conservatives also massively benefit the Liberal Democrats. Not all across Rural England, but in the regions where the Liberal Democrats paint themselves as the best and logical anti-Tory choice. The Earl of Grantham will be pleased to see that the good people of Ripon still massively support the Tories. Err... wait... sorry... make that Rishi Sunak and the good people of Richmond. But, with so many votes drained into an unexpected sinkhole in Yorkshire, the Conservative results are far from stellar elsewhere. Which might shed a light on the possible results of the incoming by-elections in Mid Bedfordshire and Selby and Ainsty, both of which belong to this Rural England. Labour claim they have reliable evidence that they are only 3% behind in Mid Bedfordshire. My model actually has them 3% ahead there, but even 3% behind would be remarkable in a seat Nadine Dorries carried by 38% in 2019. My model also has the Conservatives just 6% ahead in Selby and Ainsty, which Nigel Adams carried by 36% in 2019. Then my real hunch is that numbers don't matter here, as it's a deliberate ploy, and Boris Johnson's local allies will actually throw both by-elections. Just for the fun of it being a fucking embarrassment for Rishi Sunak, a year and change ahead of his snap general.

The results for the West Midlands strongly support the view that the Liberal Democrats will hold North Shropshire, unlike earlier by-election gains that evaporated at the general that followed. The results for the three regions of the Leafy South should also be a source of concern for CCHQ. The shift away from the Conservatives may be less of a thing in the Rural South than in the Urban South, but it still considerable and definitely endangers seats that were supposedly safe. A very strong showing for the Liberal Democrats in these regions is definitely a double whammy for the local Conservatives, as it opens the plausibility of hard-fought battlegrounds even in heartlands like Buckinghamshire and Surrey. The Conservative may very well learn the hard way that the Outer Commuter Belt is now more Chesham and Amersham, and less Surrey Heath. There is an added bonus, as the Conservatives will be forced to allocate more resources on seats they erstwhile held with only minimal effort, and staying well below the legal campaign funding limits. Which will be quite a challenge as donors are likely to think twice before again feeding the party's coffers. Nobody loves losers, and least of all those seeking influence through donations.

Zebra crossing right next to a fucking roundabout, how did that get past town planning?

(Jon Richardson, Meet The Richardsons, 2023)

Every world has ghosts. And every house is haunted by them. Even the Palace of the Empire.

Especially the Palace of the Empire. To be alive is to know ghosts. We hear their whispers if we listen.

(Gaal Dornick, Foundation: The Mathematician's Ghost, 2021)

Contrary to popular belief, Boris Johnson's surprise resignation is not such good news for London Labour. As you might have guessed from the voting intentions and seat projection I included some miles upstream, it comes at a time where Labour's luck seems to be running out in the Imperial Capital. Labour is now predicted to bag fewer votes than in 2019, and only a strong LibDem surge protects them from losing seats to the Conservatives. On the incoming redrawn boundaries, Labour would even lose the recarved Bermondsey and Old Southwark to the Liberal Democrats. After all, this and its predecessor seats were Liberal and then LibDem heartland for 32 years before the post-Coalition LibDem debacle. The London LibDems are now predicted to come quite close to their vote shares in 2005 and 2010, when the Iraq War and other shenanigans allowed them to rebrand themselves as a progressive alternative to an authoritarian New Labour. And we all know how Keir Starmer makes it easy for Ed Davey to use the same lines against a centrist New New Labour.

There was also a Lord Ashcroft poll in Uxbridge and South Ruislip just a few days before Boris resigned. It should be taken with a wee bucket of salt, like anything else Mike publishes, But I honestly don't think it's fishy material. The Ashcroft poll goes 50% Conservative, 33% Labour, 6% LibDem and 5% Green. My own model, based on the current snapshot of polls, says 50% Conservative, 35% Labour, 11% LibDem and 2% Green in that seat. Too close to dismiss the Ashcroft poll as biased bollocks. Bear in mind that my model is basic impersonal maths, while the people polled by Ashcroft, or his contractor, know exactly who the Labour candidate-designate is. Danny Beales, the Camden Councillor who thought it was brave and stunning to have zebra crossings repainted fancy colours that spooked police horses and disoriented guide dogs. Which is definitely not your best unique selling point in the most Conservative part of one of the few Conservative Boroughs left in London. So I definitely believe that gender ideology hyper-activism could prove a vote-killer here, just as it has in Spain. But that's another story that will be told a bit later.

London is where people go in order to come back from it sadder and wiser.

(Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers, 1973)

Keir Starmer doesn’t want to be a Kinnock, does he? He doesn’t want to repeat history

and get overconfident, and then lose and end up with another Tory government.

So he’s being constrained and responsible and mature. And really boring.

(Ian Hislop, Have I Got News For You?, 12 May 2023)

After the English local elections triggered a tsunami of punditarian pontification about a hung Parliament, coalitions, proportional representation and the colour of Ed Davey's socks, pollsters naturally thought they had a civic duty to survey their panels about all of it. And some of it was fucking hilarious in a backfiring way, just as I expected. There are also some hints that pollsters did not really know how to handle what was pretty much an artificial debate spawned by and for the metropolitan media punditariat, with little relation, if any, to the public's real worries and priorities. So it ended up going into multiple directions at the same time, and nobody ever gave a fucking fuck about making global sense out of it. Probably because the punditariat got tired of their new toy as quickly as they had made it up, and there was no trace of it left anywhere three weeks after it started. But we must surely grant the pollsters an A for effort, if not for relevance. Savanta included the most obvious question in their monthly omnibus poll, and also the only really relevant one, what people think will be the outcome of the incoming snap general.

There is a little bit of everything for everyone in this poll. More people believe in a Labour victory than in a Conservative victory, which is the least you can expect when you look at the polls. But many also expect, or possibly fear, a hung Parliament. The interesting twist here is that what people think will happen does not necessarily reflect what they wish will happen. For example the younger generations, who are by all accounts the most likely to vote Labour, are also the least likely to believe in a conclusive Labour victory. There is an intriguing pattern in Scotland too, and especially among SNP voters. In both cases, the belief in a Labour victory is far higher than Labour's voting intentions in Scotland. Which could also be some subtle hint that the Scottish electorate have accustomed themselves to the inevitability of a Labour government in London, and might be a factor in the migration in voting intentions from the SNP to Labour. Redfield & Wilton also include this question in their weekly polling, and the results in their latest iteration are both broadly similar and subtly different to Savanta"s.

There is indeed quite a pattern emerging from this polling. On average, predictions of a Labour or Conservative victory, either with a majority or just a plurality of seats, are not far from voting intentions for both parties. But the crosstabs reveal that they actually don't match across all demographics, geographics and politics. I think this indicates some kind of confusion, when you start drilling further down, between the people's rational assessment of the possible outcome of the election, and what their dream outcome would be. YouGov polled that too in May, and it does reveal some interesting patterns.

You won't be surprised by most of the crosstabs here. Obviously, people voting for a given party want that party to bag a majority. Unless their rational side interferes again, which tells them their favourite party has jack shit chance at ever bagging a majority, and then some sort of coalition becomes a reasonable preferred option. Just look at the Liberal Democrat bar. Sadly, YouGov does not publish crosstabs for the SNP's voters, so we will never know how many selected a Labour-SNP coalition. But that's presumably quite a lot when you have a quarter of Scots supporting it. It's also quite hilarious to see that one Brit in five wouldn't support any of the options offered by YouGov. What the fuck do they think could happen? A Labour-Conservative coalition? Or a Lab-Lib-Con threesome? As if. We also have one Brit in four rooting for some variant of a coalition, making it the second preferred option overall, and even the first among the TikTok generation, the Liberal Democrats and in Scotland. Which illustrates one of the British electorate's many contradictions, as other questions in other polls show that they don't really like coalitions that much.

I feel it’s so weird that people get down on him for being boring.

Like, after four years of the last guy we had in America, I want my politicians to be boring.

(Desiree Burch, Have I Got News For You?, 12 May 2023)

You don’t want your brain surgeon to be like, “I’m a bit of a maverick,

I don’t play by the rules”. You know what I mean? Like, let him be boring.

(Desiree Burch, Have I Got News For You?, 12 May 2023)

There are different ways to assess the public's appetite for coalitions. It can be surveyed as a position of principle, regardless of any election outcome. Or you might want to test the public's feelings about the inevitability of a coalition in a hung Parliament. Which of course will deliver different results, with some sort of incremental change between the public's reasoned choice when forced to accept the reality of a hung Parliament, and what their guts actually tell them about the desirability of coalitions, in an abstract world. YouGov asked their panel what they think should happen if the incoming snap general delivered a hung Parliament, and their views are summat of a mixed bag. People are not massively convinced that we should give the parties a chance to form a coalition and make a hung Parliament work. Almost a third would welcome a snap election to solve the problem and deliver a majority, as happened unsuccessfully in 1910, and then successfully in 1974.

There aren't many examples of coalition governments in recent British history. Wartime National Unity governments obviously don't count. The National Government of 1931-1935 doesn't count either, as the Conservatives had an overwhelming majority in Commons, making it a Conservative government in anything but name. The two 1910 elections also don't fit as there was never a coalition agreement between the Liberal Party and the Irish Parliamentary Party, but only a weak confidence-and-supply agreement in return for passing Irish Home Rule. Which the Liberal actually delivered, and then World War One took matters on a wholly different course. Technically, there have been only two genuine coalition governments in the post-Reform Act era. One in 1852-1855 between the Whigs and Peelites, which would be summat like the LibDems and the sane wing of the Tories in today's parlance. And then the one we all so fondly remember, or not, between 2010 and 2015. Memories of that one are surely the reason why the British public are actually not that fond of hung Parliaments, as found by YouGov when they asked their panel whether they consider such a situation as a bad or good thing.

I think this is evidence that the Cameron-Clegg Coalition has left a bitter after-taste. There is also quite a subliminal message in the wording of the options, implying that coalitions are forced on the political parties, rather than being a joyful choice, and that it can only deliver a weak government. The latter point is debatable, as Nick Clegg clearly valued ministerial cars and perks more than his principles, and offered David Cameron every opportunity to enforce the Conservative manifesto. Either by reneging on Liberal Democrat manifesto pledges, or by abstaining in Commons votes when they would have cornered the Conservatives into a minority. So the memories of that fateful period might not be the best indicator of the people's real feelings about the principle of a coalition. Omnisis polled their panel about that, and the results are far less clear-cut as you might imagine.

Only one Brit in five thinks that coalition governments are a positive outcome. But half can't be arsed to say for sure. That's pretty much the same pattern as when you ask them to choose between first past the post and proportional representation. But they will have to choose a side at the incoming snap general. Obviously, no party will be daft enough to openly campaign for a hung Parliament and a coalition government. Though Loony Left Tory-enabler Owen Jones is already doing just that, and The Hipstershire Gazette is just one hare's breadth away from going down the same road. One can only hope the electorate won't fall for that. It's not even a question of choosing between Labour and the Conservatives, Red Tories and Blue Tories. It's a choice between a government being able to govern, even if you don't like the way they govern, and predictable chaos. Just inject some common sense into the broth and we'll all be fine. Possibly.

It’s the LibDems’ big moment. I don’t know why everyone’s not more excited.

(Ian Hislop, Have I Got News For You?, 12 May 2023)

Here, we bitch because organised crime is a parasite on our economy.

In Russia, there’s nothing but organised crime. It’s a kleptocracy.

(Toni Ricci, Law & Order: Refuge, 1999)

Joe Biden has reluctantly relented and lifted the American veto to the delivery of F-16 fighters to Ukraine. Just like Olaf Scholz before him had reluctantly relented and lifted the German veto to the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. I won't even tell you that I told you so, though I did months ago. Because it was inevitable, and there is no glory in being right by predicting the inevitable. It actually happened faster than I had predicted, and a substantial number of planes will be in Ukraine in a matter of months, as Ukrainian pilots have already started training on F-16s in various European countries three or four months ago. Apart from foreign governments, Biden was probably influenced by a bi-partisan group of Representatives actively lobbying in favour of the delivery, pretty much nullifying the narrative that the United States Congress was reluctant to continue funding aid to Ukraine. Interestingly, YouGov released a poll on the very same day Biden freed the F-16s, surveying their panel about our sanctions against Russia. The panel were asked whether they think the sanctions have been effective at "degrading Russia's ability to fight and sustain the war in Ukraine". And the answer was quite disheartening.

The sad, but obvious, truth is that there are many reasons why half of the British public can feel the sanctions have not been effective. I think it boils down to having entertained too high expectations. I always thought the effectiveness of the sanctions could not be assessed in just one year, and that we were in for the long haul, and I remember writing just that months ago. The European Union have taken months to disentangle themselves from their dependency to Russian oil and gas, so Russia has not yet felt the full impact of the loss of revenues. Selling the same good to India and China a third below market price means they lose dozens of billions, but we probably need until the end of the year for them to feel the full fallout. And then we can present the evidence that the sanctions do work. Now, seeing the results of that poll, that's the cue the Putin-appeasers need to jump in like Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition, because this lot are that fucking predictable. And stamp the ground trumpeting that they told us so, it's not working and it hurts us more than them, so it's time to give up. Only the British public know best. They know that "these things take time" is not a random applebyism here, so they don't dance to that tune, quite the opposite in fact. YouGov also asked if their panel would support or oppose further sanctions against Russian interests, and they massively support it.

It's quite reassuring to see that the British public can overcome their doubts over the effectiveness of the current array of sanctions, and conclude that we must do more and not less. Which Ukraine's allies fully understand, as they have started fixing the loopholes and thrown some spanners in the cogs of Russia's diamond trade. Which are actually not Russia's diamonds, but loot from Wagner's colonial endeavours in Africa, that Russia needs to foot the bill of the Ukraine war. This new front was surely a fascinating topic of discussion with India at the extended G7 in Japan, as India is known as the gateway into the world for Russia's blood diamonds. But a lot remains to be done to achieve the sanctions' real objective. Which is not to ruin Russia's economy in the short term, so they can't afford to go on with the war in Ukraine. But to damage it in the long term, so they end up having to give up on the war in Ukraine and never again have the ability to fund the same kind of criminal aggression against another country. That's why we're in it for a long long time. Why the UK government, regardless of what we think of their other policies, have to get our full support on this. And why we must fight the toxic influence of Kremlin-bribed propagandists, in the media and in politics, wherever they are and however they try and hide their true motives. It's a never ending task, but worth the effort.

The Russian mob will pull capers the other ones are too stupid to try.

They're brutal and they’re smart. And they’ll do business with anyone.

(Toni Ricci, Law & Order: Refuge, 1999)

The Soviet Union actively contributed to the death of the world's colonial system. Now we, together with

other countries, can drive the last nail into the coffin of the neo-colonial aspirations of the Western world.

(Dmitri Anatolyevich Medvedev)

Six days ago, the Russian military blew up the Kakhovka dam in the illegally occupied territories of Southern Ukraine. This was another premeditated war crime, and part of the war of terror waged by Russia on the civilian population of Ukraine. There are multiple consequences to this. The most direct one is to jeopardise the supply of electricity to Ukraine. Another instant consequence is the flooding of a vast area downstream of the dam, forcing the evacuation of more than 80 villages and thousands of people. Mines freed by the sudden movements of water are also an immediate threat to the civilian population's lives. The Ukrainian government raised further concerns about irreparable ecological damage to the region and its agriculture. On a more reassuring note, the destruction of the dam and subsequent loss of water from its reservoir is unlikely to threaten the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which takes its cooling water from that reservoir some 120 kilometres upstream. But only because the plant has its own backup reservoir, and five of its six reactors are now shut down. This new act of terrorist warfare, a direct and deliberate violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, was committed just a few days after YouGov released the latest update of their Ukraine Tracker about the British public's attitudes towards the war in Ukraine.

I have selected only the three most relevant items in YouGov's bucket list, as the other five are either unrealistic, or would trigger a direct military confrontation with Russia that nobody wants. I have nevertheless included cyber attacks, because they can be done covertly while keeping the actual point of origin hidden. So I won't rule them out, especially as they are probably already happening and Russia does not want to draw attention to them. That leaves us with the two main directions of action, sanctions and military aid, which still enjoy massive support despite massive propaganda efforts by the Russian Kremlin-backed bloggers and the Kremlin-bribed Putin-enablers on our side. Sustained, and even increased, military aid is essential now that there are conclusive signs that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has started. Our own Storm Shadows are a key element here, due to their superior performance, and the UK government should definitely deliver more. The British public are willing to accept increased military support, and it is the only way to avoid a disastrous outcome for Ukraine, that Brits don't support.

The British public understand that a negotiated peace is an illusion in the current military situation. Would Churchill have negotiated peace with Hitler in 1942? The key is in the wording of YouGov's question. We don't want Russia to keep control of parts on Ukraine, because that would be rewarding a criminal aggression and violent imperialism. It has also been said and proved multiple times that Vladimir Putin considers diplomatic efforts to be a sign of weakness and understands only the language of brute force. So that's what we must give him. A stronger Ukrainian military, able to push the Russian military and Putin's mercenaries back behind the internationally recognised borders of 1991. It is the right moment, when even some prominent members of Putin's own party United Russia admit publicly that Russia is rightly seen as the aggressor, and doesn't have the means to defeat Ukraine. It is a moral imperative when Russia continues its terrorist war against the civilian population, deliberately shelling evacuees and rescuers in the flooded towns downstream of the Kakhovka dam. It's also a long-term strategic imperative, decisively crippling Russian military potential to eliminate the risk of further opportunistic imperialist aggression. Remember the lessons of 1938. Appeasement leads only to dishonour and disaster. Today, we have the means to avoid both.

Truly sovereign states are no longer afraid of the dictates of the notorious 'collective West'. The new

multipolar world will be much more difficult than a bipolar or unipolar dictate. We like this scheme.

(Dmitri Anatolyevich Medvedev)

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.

(Jimmy Carter)

Should we be afraid of Republicans? The 21st century variant of the Grand Old Party encapsulates all the excesses and contradictions of conservative America, overplaying their hand every time they seem to be heading for success. Experts in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The latest victim is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He once appeared as the rising star of the Republican Party, a credible alternative to a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024, something like a just as rigidly conservative but saner version of Trump. But his obsession with manufactured culture wars, and making Florida 'the place where wokeism comes to die' have backfired quite badly. In a massively ironic twist of fate, DeSantis is now losing momentum and mocked as being too far to the right by no other than Donald Trump himself. As a result, the trends of presidential election polling look better for the Democrats, but there are many strong caveats attached.

The first caveat is that all we have now are nationwide polls. And we know that the Electoral College system means you can win the popular vote and lose the election. And that this twist works only in the Republicans' favour, as the Electoral College over-represents small rural Red States. But there are no state-level polls available now, so we're left with just speculation, and the basic statistical fact that Democrats need more than a two or three-points lead to win the election. A lot also depends on who is pitted against whom. Which now means who is pitted against Joe Biden, as pollsters no longer survey a Kamala Harris candidacy. Three Republicans have already announced they will stand in their party's primaries: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and Ambassador to the United Nations. Unfortunately for Biden, recent polls say he would do well, and plausibly win re-election, against DeSantis and Haley. But not against Trump, who is so far the most likely Republican candidate.

It is painful to admit that Trump has more personal appeal than any 'mainstream' Republican candidate, but that's what the polls unambiguously say. This might be because the three Republican campaigns are very oddly conducted. Trump seems content with letting his supporters paint DeSantis as a dangerous extremist, which would make The Donald summat like the voice of reason, not really what anyone expected. Haley is even more radically anti-woke than DeSantis but, unlike him and Trump, is a vocal supporter of Ukraine and increasing American military aid. The latter is enough of a red line in the sand for the isolationist Republican base to negate any 'positive' fallout from her otherwise strongly right-wing positions. But it's early days, with the election seventeen months away, and both parties' national conventions and nominations thirteen or fourteen months out. Lots can happen in the meanwhile, including The Donald being terminally impeached after his indictment by a Federal Court, for offences that carry at least a 20-year prison sentence. The fun part is that Federal Courts have a 99.6% conviction rate, stratospherically higher than State Courts like the one in New York that already indicted The Donald over lesser misdeeds.

In the land of the Red Mass and programmed assassins, paranoia is a healthy response.

(John Munch, Law & Order: Sideshow, 1999)

I doubt anyone here would recognise civic virtue if it reached up and bit you in the ass.

(Jean Rasczak, Starship Troopers, 1997)

The usual round of elections for the United States Congress will also be held on the 5th of November. With the whole House of Representatives and the Class 1 Senate seats up. There have been very few polls fielded yet for the House elections, and they are generally more favourable for the Democrats than the 2022 elections. But not by much, so the wee Democratic lead could evaporate when the congressional races become more polarised and divisive, as is often the case in a presidential year. What we have right now is nevertheless enough of a swing to deliver a return to the 2020 allocation of seats, give or take. A lot will depend on which direction the national campaigns will take, which might in many cases nullify the incumbency bonus and any personal recognition bonus the candidates might enjoy. A significant factor will be the weight of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the Democratic campaign. They're the American variant of what I like to call the Loony Woke Left, and have already gained considerable influence up to the highest levels of the Democratic Party, including the White House. On an agenda that might not be such a vote-winner outwith the West Coast and the liberal North East. Time will tell.

The Senate elections are potentially more risky for the Democrats. Of 34 seats up for election, 11 are held by Republicans, 20 by Democrats and 3 by Independents who caucus with the Democrats. One of the independents, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, was elected as a Democrat and changed affiliation in 2022. The other two, Angus King of Maine and the galaxy-famous Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have always sat as independents. State-level polling is all that matters for the highly personalised Senate races, which often go against the trend even in a presidential year. Few states have been polled so far, and only those considered key races that might impact the overall result. But it points to a less stellar result for the Democrats than at the 2022 midterms, when they bagged an unexpected gain and control of the Senate. This year, the numbers say Democrats are on the defence, and it might well be a return to the previous stalemate, requiring Vice-President Kamala Harris to be on 24/7 call in case her tie-breaking vote is needed.

Polls look good for the Democrats in Arizona, where their official candidate is predicted to prevail over incumbent Kyrsten Sinema. Which would be technically a Democratic hold, though they will probably spin it as a Democratic gain from an unreliable rogue Independent. Things look quite bad for another unpredictable rogue, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Once a Democratic state with a strong mining working-class tradition, West Virginia has turned conclusively red in the 21st century. Manchin, who was once the state's Governor, now appears like a blue anomaly on an otherwise red map. One that is likely to be erased this year, as state-level polls definitely predict a Republican gain. There is also a rather unsettling situation in Massachusetts for the seat currently held by left-wing icon Elisabeth Warren. That same seat was previously held by Ted Kennedy for 47 years, but briefly switched to the Republican Party after Kennedy's death. It is consensually considered a safe Democratic seat now, and as such was not polled at all until a month ago. When a shocker poll predicted a majority of the vote for the Republicans. Which nobody actually believes, but it might be a weaker hold than expected for the Democrats, so I rank it 'Weak Dem' for now.

There was something refreshing about the days when America looked us in the face and

said we should go fuck ourselves. Now we’re back to getting dry-buggered and told it’s love.

(Nicol Trowbridge, The Diplomat, 2023)

This presidential system will be unique to Turkey, it will be like a bee making honey,

taking something from every flower and giving us a taste of a truly different honey.

(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)

Turkey has democratically chosen, again, Erdogan's variant of authoritarian conservative nationalism over the possible alternative. After a distressing campaign that soon turned into a competition in performative nationalism, with bulk expulsion of Syrian refugees becoming the mainstream position. Erdogan had everything to win from the campaign taking this turn, as it avoided scrutiny of his failures, from out-of-control inflation to widespread corruption making the fallout of the Gaziantep earthquake even worse. But we in the West would be wrong to climb on our moral high horse here. Authoritarianism and xenophobia have pervaded our own political systems for a long time now. Conservatives and social-democrats alike have fallen for it across Europe, in cynical attempts to score cheap political points. So maybe we should think twice before lecturing Turkey about the rule of law, human rights and whatnot. This was also an election where Turkish pollsters did not cover themselves in glory, as they missed the result of the first round by more percentage points than the standard margin of error, despite a small course correction in the very last days.

On the first round's election night, there were multiple testimonies of intimidation of opposition observers at polling places, bullying of election staff into multiple recounts of the same ballot boxes, and hints of attempts to rig the counts at several polling places in cities where the opposition vote is historically stronger. On the day of the second round, Erdogan was seen repeating one of his classic stunts. Handing over toys to kids and banknotes to adults just outside his own polling place, something which would be grounds for prosecution and voiding the election in every country, bar Russia and Republican states in the USA. Though there might be an exemption in the UK, for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency. In the fortnight leading to the second round, pollsters were closer to the actual result than before the first round. The result is also quite similar to the first round of the 2018 election, where Erdogan was re-elected on the first round, and the combined opposition vote was just 0.4% lower than the CHP vote this year. It is just further evidence that earlier polls overestimated the appetite for change, or Erdogan's ability to turn the electorate around with crowd-pleasing populist rhetoric. Something that is definitely not unique to Turkey.

In some ways, you could say that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu asked for it and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Universalism and internationalism have never been fortes of any Turkish political party, but Kılıçdaroğlu definitely went one bridge too far when he tried to outflank Erdogan on nationalism during the fortnight between the two rounds. It was quite a dick move from a candidate who had conclusively won the Kurdish vote in the first round in the absence of a candidate from the Kurdish left. And also a very transparent attempt to snatch some of the 5% bagged by the far-right candidate Sinan Oğan. Then, ye ken, of mice and men... It did not work according to plan, as most of these votes went to Erdogan, who would have snatched them anyway in all realistic scenarios. If elected, Kılıçdaroğlu would have been facing an impossible task anyway as the parliamentary election, held on the same day as the first round of the presidential election, delivered a strong right-wing majority despite some gains for the opposition parties.

The right-wing coalition went down from an 88-seat majority in 2018 to a 46-seat majority this year, as their combined share of the popular vote went down from 54% to 51%. The votes lost by the AKP were mostly made up for by the emergence of some minor parties with a more radical agenda, who did not compete in 2018. The electoral system also dampened the impact of a lower vote share for the AKP. Despite being notionally proportional, a large number of small rural constituencies makes it a de facto closed-list FPTP system for almost 20% of the seats, thusly offering a significant bonus to the AKP. To sum it up, these elections in Turkey are bad news not just for the true democrats there, but also for us. Because they strengthen an illiberal regime on the border of Europe, and will enable Erdogan to continue acting as Putin's mole within NATO in the short term. And, in the longer term after Russia's defeat in Ukraine and Putin's downfall, as China's mole. Because selling Turkey by the lira to Chinese interests is the only way Erdogan can avoid a catastrophic meltdown of the Turkish economy. No sunlit uplands here.

If the people allow something to happen, it’s the right thing.

(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)

Those who have the power to make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.

(Voltaire)

Now imagine a country where the minimum wage has risen by 47% over the last four years, inflation is down to 4%, the fallout of the Ukraine war has been minimal because the country was never really dependent on Russian oil and gas, and where trains run on time. Every British politician would pay to be in charge of that country and cruise to a landslide re-election. But the reality doesn't match the dream, it's not even close. Because that country is Spain, and the governing coalition of the social-democratic PSOE and the radical left Podemos took a massive drubbing at regional and local elections, on the same Sunday Turkey re-elected their Lider Maximo. What first went wrong was the government, who have only a minority in the Cortes, seeking votes from the Catalan ERC, which is like Labour seeking votes from the SNP. But also from the Basque EH Bildu, which would be like Labour striking a deal for votes with Sinn Féin, in that parallel universe where they take their seats. As if this hadn't ruffled enough feathers already, they then proceeded to pass one law redefining sexual offences including rape, which led to reduced sentences and even an early release for about 1,200 sexual offenders and rapists. And then another one making gender self-identification and applying for the Spanish variant of a GRC legal at 16 without parental knowledge. Contrary to the government's expectations, all hell broke loose and the roof fell on their heads at the first opportunity, offered by the regional and local elections.

The charts display the results of the elections for the regional Parliaments, the upper tier of local government known as autonomous communities in Spain, held in only 12 of 17 regions this year. And then the results of the local elections for the municipal councils, the lower tier of Spanish local government, held in the whole country. On such results, some in the loony left would be prompt to comment that it was transphobic bigots switching from the left to the right. The numbers tell another story, as the major factor behind the conservative Partido Popular's success was the annihilation of the centrist Ciudadanos party. The Partido Popular siphoned their votes and their seats, and that alone would have delivered an electoral upset. Then, disgruntled voters on the left clearly had one preferential target, Podemos, who also took their allies of Izquierda Unida, the electoral front of the Communist Party, down with them. Interestingly the newborn left-wing alliance Sumar, which is summat of a last ditch attempt to salvage the radical left by rebranding it 'feminist' and opening it to 'non-woke' parties, bagged more votes and almost as many municipal seats as the ruins of Podemos. A lot of left-wing voters also switched to regional and local parties, which abound in Spain and are ideologically fairly evenly split between left and right. The trends of voting intentions also show that another disaster for the Spanish Left is to be expected at the next general election. They actually started turning really bad for the PSOE-Podemos coalition in the summer of last year, just after the Spanish government had validated the controversial gender laws and sent them to Parliament, who took six months before voting on them.

In the hours following massive media coverage of a debacle for the Left at the local elections, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chose to call a snap general election. On 23 July instead of the scheduled date in December. Which will probably not buck the trends of voting intentions, and only means MPs on the losing end will be put out of their misery some months earlier, and will enjoy a happier Christmas. There is massive evidence, from columns in Spanish and international media, that the Left's spectacular debacle at the local elections was accelerated by groups of left-leaning feminists, many of them previously active with the PSOE and even some with Podemos, campaigning under the slogan Feminismo No Vota Traidores (feminism does not vote for traitors). This had even more negative impact for the PSOE than soliciting votes from EH Bildu, who are widely seen as the political front for the now-dissolved terrorist ETA. The left-wing feminist revolt is unlikely to die down before the general election, which would thusly be quite a landmark, as the first ever democratic election to bring down a government specifically because of their support for gender ideology. Another sign of this is that the opposition's voting intentions have reached their highest level at about the same time the Spanish Parliament passed the new gender laws, which is surely not a coincidence and plausibly even a causality. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP should take heed, as it would be foolish to assume that this can't happen here. Remember, Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd,

beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.

(Voltaire)

Jeremy's Den

11/06/2023

A Better Future... Maybe.

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