13/01/2025

Wait For The Ricochet

It was a bit like a laxative finally working, wasn't it? That's what I made of the election this year. It took a long time to come. And do you know what? It was a bit painful, and the outcome wasn't pleasant, but ultimately you were left with a sense of slight relief.
(Susie McCabe, Breaking The News, 27 December 2024)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1972

I have divided politicians into two categories: the Signposts and the Weathercocks. The Signpost says, "This is the way we should go". The Weathercock hasn’t got an opinion until they've looked at the polls, talked to focus groups, discussed it with spin doctors.
(Tony Benn)

Some more noisy stuff this time, but a wee smitch more sophisticated than Slade, with Deep Purple's iconic classic Made In Japan, recorded over three nights in Japan in August 1972 and released in December 1972. You will have it here in the complete remastered version of 1998, including the encores that weren't on the original album. Also with the songs in the correct order of the concert, "Smoke On The Water" second and "Child In Time" third, while they were the other way round on the original release, to fit the circa-20-minutes-per-side standard of LPs. Which, as you may know, were these big slim black things they had back in those days before streaming. Oddly, the correct order was never restored on later CD releases, until the boxset of the three complete concerts was released in 2014. You have it now. Play it loud and enjoy.

Don't forget to click on the images for bigger smarter versions of the charts.

We're still in January, so we're still allowed to look back one last time before we move on. Now is as good a time as any to do summat of a post-mortem of that tremendous and life-changing election year, that was in fact neither tremendous nor life-changing. I take neither pride nor pleasure in telling you that I told you so, but of course I do, because I did. Many months before the election, I reached the unavoidable conclusion that Labour's victory would be a victory by default. Which it undoubtedly was, and we are already seeing evidence of that in the waves of discontent and the trends of voting intentions polls. These trends show a significant change over the last three months of 2024. What could very plausibly have been a tie between Labour and the Conservatives has now transitioned into the strong possibility of a three-way contest including Reform UK.


The most striking thing here, and also the most worrying, is that New Model Labour is not losing many votes to the parties on their left, but a lot to the parties on their right. They actually asked for it by setting aside the concerns of the working class, and embracing the social-liberal views and bourgeois luxury beliefs of the metropolitan middle-class. And even that did not fully work, as shown by Jeremy Corbyn's success against Establishment Labour in hipster-heavy Islington. So it's quite logical to see Labour's support now crumbling down, in the same catastrophic way the Houses of Parliament themselves are bound to do sooner or later. Their decline is shown even more strikingly if you visualise the month-by-month weighted average of polls conducted since the election, and what kind of seat projections this produces. Limited to the 632 seats of England, Scotland and Wales, as usual. There was indeed a short honeymoon in late July, a return to the general election patterns in August, and then it only went downhill quite fast.


Such projections should definitely ring massive alarm bells at New Model Labour's HQ, as they are not the result of random variations, but of genuine strong trends. The rookie MPs of the Class Of '24 obviously should be worried the most, especially those whose constituencies were not on the official target list, and are quite disparagingly called the 'bonus MPs' by The Hipstershire Gazette. Losing votes and seats at both ends, to Reform UK and the SNP, is just the illustration that Labour have now landed themselves in deep shit, and it may even be just the beginning of their problems. One of them is Keir Starmer himself, who was already not really popular as Leader of the Opposition. Even when facing deeply devaluated Conservatives, who ended up with their worst defeat in the party's history, he was never better than the gloomy publican getting a 2.4 on TripAdvisor. And it has only got worse since he has been promoted to Prime Minister. And, like the party's voting intentions, it happened pretty quickly and is probably not going to get better soon.


One of Keir Starmer's problems is his lack of a genuine ideological foundation, that has trickled down into the whole Labour Party. Starmer never rooted for democratic socialism, that was more Jeremy Corbyn's domain, but neither really for social-liberalism, which should have been more his thing. Instead, he chose a revival of beigism, something our distant ancestors already experienced under the unmemorable Premiership of Alec Douglas-Home. But, while Douglas-Who? was more of the "don't mind me, I'm just passing through" type, Starmer is here to stay for a whole standard term. Even with Elon Musk making a fucking arse of himself several times a day with his testerical tweets asking Charles to fire Starmer or call a general election. If Elmo was familiar with the basics of British democracy, he would know that our monarchs have long ago conceded that they no longer have that kind of power. Summat like two centuries, I think. But, of course, Elmo would never know that as he is too busy campaigning for neo-Nazis and spreading FSB-generated fake news to get himself educated. He was even found plotting a Very British Coup, which left the Great British Public totally unamused. That doesn't mean that Starmer is safe, though, as he can still bury himself in the hole he's been digging for months.

That’s it, goodbye, I’m not gonna waste my time arguing with a man who’s lining up to be a hot lunch.
(Matt Hooper, Jaws, 1975)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1972

I have no intention of unpicking something that makes perfect sense. And may I say, and I hope for the last time this week, please leave it to the professionals.
(Anthony Carter, The Secret Adversary, 2015)

On the Sixth Day Of Christmas, we were granted a totally unexpected gift. Not six geese a-laying, but the results of a Full Scottish Poll conducted in the week before Christmas by Find Out Now, not usually a frequent presence North Of The Wall. But their findings were sensational enough for The Scottish Pravda to devote them not just one, but three, columns, with the usual stating-the-obvious by John Curtice and some snap comments from select parts of the Scottish politicariat. Then, they had paid for that poll, so obviously they had to make the most of it. You may remember that I had expressed doubts about an earlier poll by Norstat, despite them being the best predictors of both the 2021 Holyrood election and the 2024 general election in Scotland. But the Find Out Now poll confirmed them, and in sone cases amplified them, which makes it quite unlikely that we had two successive outliers, and more credible that this is the vanguard of some tectonic shift in Scottish politics. Again. And in an incredibly short time too, unlike earlier Scottish tectonic events. First of all, the Independence trendlines have started to move towards Yes again, even if there is still a long way to go.


Interestingly, both Norstat and Find Out Now have added a follow-up question to their IndyRef polling. Norstat actually added three, on behalf of thinktank-cum-lobby Believe In Scotland, as an extension to their last poll sponsored by The Sunday Times. Remember that their poll already showed a convincing majority for Yes, and then explored some "what if?" that made it even bigger. I must confess that I am not totally convinced by the concept of Wellbeing Economy, which looks like a rather foggy notion that even Wokopedia can't really define. It nevertheless has some appeal, though a massive increase of the state pension would be a better incentive to support Independence. Their third item, about Scotland becoming a republic, is quite irrelevant at this stage as it could only be decided after independence. And it also shouldn't be a unilateral decision by the Scottish Government, but the people's choice in another referendum.


Find Out Now added just one follow-up question, that I honestly find quite ridiculous. Their baseline also showed a majority for Yes, and I don't see the point of using Nigel Farage as the bogeyman who would boost the cause of Independence. That's probably because I can't see any way Farage could ever become Prime Minister, even with the full weight of Vladimir Putin and the FSB behind him, now that Elon Musk has broken up with him. Admittedly, the stunt works, though it is less efficient than the £241.50 state pension. Which we probably couldn't afford anyway.


No matter which carrots pollsters dangle under our noses, the ball is still in the SNP's court, for better or for worse. We may not like it, but they remain the main party of Independence in the eyes of the Scottish public, especially now that there are some tiny hints of implosive disintegration of the Alba Party. But let's be realists. Even if the SNP had made a cast-iron case for Independence, which they haven't, we would still be parsecs away from even the distant prospect of a second referendum. It looks more and more like that "once in a generation" narrative will become a reality after all, even plausibly a very long generation. Through no fault of our own, the key remains in Westminster and the current context makes our position weaker than in 2012, when Alex Salmond blackmailed David Cameron into the Edinburgh Agreement. The disastrous general election has left the SNP with far less leverage, which they probably wouldn't have used anyway. And Starmer doesn't have the baws to face the massive backlash from the right, that would instantly and inevitably come if he agreed to get that ball rolling again. We can still hope, but I fear we will have to suck it up eventually.

That’s the trouble. You become blinded by opportunity, and reality is lost in the mists of hope.
(Jeremy Clarkson)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1970

In the biggest political story of a generation, despite early doubts, the devilishly charismatic showman of politics regained power once more, yes, as John Swinney became First Minister of Scotland.
(Des Clarke, Breaking The News, 27 December 2024)

Of course, the most sensational part of the Find Out Now poll, the one that must have given Mridul Wadhwa a boner, was their Holyrood polling. Not that it said anything really different from the Norstat poll a month before, but it did include quite a shocker, a visible swing from the SNP to the Scottish Greens on both votes. Certainly the last thing I expected, given the Greenies' mammoth backlog of amateurish infantile idiocy. The rest of their findings was far less shocking. We again had the Labour vote on a downward spiral, falling faster than it had risen over the preceding year, and the Reform UK vote continuing to rise, The only element of novelty, in that respect, is that Find Out Now predicted Labour to do worse at the next election than in 2021, which is not summat I would have waged a fiver on just six months ago. Though I think the real question now is, like, "Does the party of grifters who keep smearing Alex Salmond beyond the grave, with lies and fabrications, really deserve another term?", and all Scottish voters should consider that before the next election, Or you might want to ask yourselves if the party who wants to shield MSPs from public scrutiny when they're not doing their job really deserves your vote.


Now the main thing is what sort of Scottish Parliament Grok-free algorithms deduce from these numbers. As usual, there are some differences between what my model and Uniform National Swing make of that, but both invite the same conclusion. That it's fucking unbelievable. First that the immensely creepy Paddy Harvie could gain a constituency seat in Glasgow Kelvin. Then that the mendacious needy Greenies could skyrocket to their best ever result at a Holyrood election, after all the performative harm they have inflicted on Scotland in recent years. But the numbers say so, and both models predict that we would again have a majority for the fortunately-defunct Yellow-Green Axis. To nobody's surprise, serial fuck-upper Unicorna Slater instantly jumped on the opportunity to signal that the Greens were ready to get their ministerial e-scooters back, simultaneously hinting that they/them would enter negotiations with as much good faith and openness to compromise as Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. But, Thank Dog, even The Scottish Pravda's vestigial readership have had enough of their bullshit and don't want them back. John Swinney would be well-advised to listen to vox populi for once, and avoid signing up for a rerun of an unmitigated disaster. Especially as he has an oven-ready alternative, a coalition with either Labour or the Liberal Democrats, that would also spawn majorities. Again, just never say never.


But why? But how? Has John Swinney found a new meaning to his life, and a new sense of destiny, after the Ambassador of Ukraine to England, and former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi travelled to Edinburgh in October? For the photo-op Honest John needed to prove he is as internationally-revered as Nicola was. Or was it to give tips on how resisting an abusive imperialist neighbour is really done? Whatever it was, I feel inclined to take this poll with a pinch of salt. Don't forget that John's scarce electoral record is mostly that he led the SNP to its worst performance ever at a Scottish Parliament election, and the party had to bring back Alex Salmond to reframe their trauma. Now The Scottish Pravda has Johnny ranting about Elon Musk, which he didn't do spontaneously. They specifically solicited a comment, oddly extended to cover Jess Phillips and the grooming gangs, probably because of the 'shock headline' value of any sort of talk about a hypothetical Musk interference. I wouldn't worry too much about that, though, as all Elmo knows about Scotland is probably limited to Brigadoon and Balmenie, and there's no way he could make dosh off those.

I loved the Euros. We were shite but we had a great time. But that's it, that's Scotland. It was great.
(Iain Stirling, Breaking The News, 27 December 2024)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1971

At the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, I’ve got Lulu there, Kylie Minogue here, and we had, for some reason, fifty Scottie dogs in the middle of the pitch at Hampden Park. So, it looked so glamorous but all I could smell for that entire broadcast was dog poo.
(Des Clarke, Celebrity Mastermind, 23 December 2024)

Looks like I almost forgot the only other item of The Swinney's short form of electoral failure, that he also led the SNP to their worst result at a general election since Devolution, losing one seat to still-shell-shocked Conservatives, without which they would have bagged the same overall number as in 1997. But it still might work differently next time, If Johnny is still around in 2029, that is. It's safe to bet there are already knives being sharpened inside the SNP, to get rid of him as soon as feasible, even if the SNP win in 2026, Anyway, the monthly weighted average of polls, and the seat projections therefrom, clearly show the same patterns as in the rest of the UK. The love story with Labour was as short as the SNP could dream of, and the most recent polling is pure Jimmy Cliff. The harder they come, the harder they fall, one and all.


Of course you will object that most of this polling comes from Scottish subsamples of GB-wide polls, and thusly not the most reliable. But we also have Full Scottish polls of Westminster voting intentions, seven of them since the general election, and they tell the same story. It's not a massive comeback for the SNP, as even their best poll has them bagging just a third of the popular vote. It's in fact a complete Labour meltdown North Of The Wall. They have lost almost half their votes from the general election, in just six months. You don't see that often, as the best, or worst depending on your perspective, was Labour losing 43% of their votes in 2015, and then the SNP losing 25% of theirs in 2017. Of course, with the next election four years and change away, Labour can still recover, but all the ingredients are here to make it their most uphill battle in ages.


The most striking and worrying part of all this polling is obviously Reform UK making gains and becoming a credible player in Scotland too. They already have managed the impossible, replacing the Conservatives as the Unionist alternative to Labour. And they didn't do it by snatching Conservative votes, they did it by biting off a big chunk of the Labour vote, and one they can chew. The net result is that the SNP is now predicted to return to a massive majority of Scottish seats, while gaining back only a small part of the voters they lost to Labour last year. And we have the massive irony of seeing the 'Party of Independence' returning to its earlier dominance thanks to the unexpected performance of the most radically Unionist far-right. Something The Scottish Pravda definitely did not want you to see too clearly, as they did not mention it even once in their flurry of self-congratulatory articles about the poll.


If the SNP had any campaigning skills left, they would switch their focus off Labour, especially if some sort of Great Coalition appears to be the most solid option after the next Holyrood election. Anas Sarwar's decision to abstain on the budget and thusly allow it to pass, even when some of his key demands have not been met, shows that Scottish Labour are more open to some sort of cooperation, Of course, part of the motivation is pure arse-saving, as Sarwar knows without a doubt how unpopular Starmer's government has become in Scotland, and is admitting that distancing Scottish Labour from London Labour may be just the lifeline he needs to avoid total electoral disaster. In this context, it would be far smarter for the SNP to seriously challenge Reform UK, and there is a lot of material already available to do that. Or will they sit on their hands until polls hint that Reform UK has become the second party in Scotland, and could gain a handful of Scottish MPs to prove it?

I was carried South by marauding Sassenachs when I was a bairn. But this is my spiritual home.
(John Steed, The Avengers: Castle De'ath, 1965)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1971

Using a tracker, Welsh runner Terry Rosoman set the world record for the largest ever GPS drawing of a penis, at seventy-five miles.
(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You?, 8 November 2024)

The sequence of last year's polls shows that Labour are also under pressure in Wales, though obviously to a far lesser extent than in Scotland. Nevertheless, end-of-year polling predicts they would lose seven seats to the Conservatives and three to Reform UK, which is quite a debacle by Welsh standards. With losses quite evenly distributed between rural seats in the North and urban seats in the South, the sum of which is definitely not a good omen. Plaid Cymru do not benefit from it, even if their predicted vote share is higher now than in July, as they are mostly challenged from the right in their rural seats in the West. There is a consensus that they would lose Ynys Mon back to the Conservatives, and also the more distant possibility of an uncertain confrontation with either the Conservatives or a surging Reform UK in Caerfyrddin.


This is extrapolated from Welsh subsamples of generic polls, as there has been just one Full Welsh poll of Westminster voting intentions since the general. It was much more favourable to Labour, predicting them to hold 24 seats, but that was at the end of October, before the most visible waves of discontent seen in later polls. It would definitely be a good idea to provide us with an update now, which I suppose either Survation or YouGov could be convinced to deliver. Pollsters have been more interested in polling the next Senedd election, as I mentioned in my Christmas Eve entry. If we focus only on the very last Senedd poll, conducted by YouGov at the end of November, it doesn't look too good for Labour.


Here we have pretty much a four-way tie, as the gap between first and fourth is just 5%, with the poll's margin of error being around 3%. I am not surprised by Plaid Cymru coming first here, as they have a long history of doing better in Senedd polls than in Westminster polls, just as they did better at the 2021 Senedd election than at either the 2019 or the 2024 generals. Labour tied for second with Reform UK is just the natural consequence of that, as the extra Plaid votes mostly come from Labour voters at generals. I again spare you the full details of the sausage-making for the seat projection, but it confirms that proportional representation from small six-seat constituencies acts like a buffer to protect Labour incumbents, as intended. But they would still suffer significant losses, and be forced into a coalition with Plaid Cymru. This would be a major setback for Keir Starmer, especially if coupled with a complete debacle in Scotland on the same day, so he should brace himself for all the oppositions treating that as summat of a 'midterm verdict' on Labour. Unless polls in both nations take a massively different direction over the next 16 months. 

It has been revealed that NHS Wales still uses fax machines in their hospitals. Even more worryingly, they use them for dialysis. 
(Mel Giedroyc, Have I Got News For You?, 6 December 2024)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1972

You’ve never been to York. I have. Filthy weather, people, morals.
(Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall: Entirely Beloved, 2015)

Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham. Not names you would ever expect to see trending on Twitter, and yet... Let's be clear about one thing first. The grooming gangs scandal would never have happened if not for the astoundingly idiotic 'cultural relativism' embedded at the core of wokeism. Or without the obsession with 'diversity and inclusion', that made people in positions of power, from Councillors to police forces, consider that ignoring abject crimes put them 'on the right side of history'. This being said, Elon Musk using a very real scandal to promote his own illiberal agenda is shameful and vomit-inducing. We don't want foreign interference here, especially from a psychotic billionaire openly campaigning for neo-Nazis, and motivated only by personal interests and personal vendettas. Then Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick came along and, when Musk said "Jump!", they asked "Off which cliff?". Just to be reminded that the scandal had already been fully investigated ten years ago, a full report and recommendations issued, and that they had deliberately chosen to do jack shit about it, and had even never ever mentioned it before they jumped on the Musk bandwagon of fabricated hysteria. Whatever the impact of this sudden faux outrage will be, Labour's position in the North West of England was already getting less solid long before Elmo started stoking the fire.


A lot of seats across the North may look relatively safe because Labour bagged massive majorities at the general election, just like in Scotland. But it would be wrong to assume that Labour are at risk only in the marginal 'bonus seats'. They are actually facing the same level of threat as the Conservatives before the election. Such a massive swing against them that no seat is really safe anymore. Depending on the local context, pretty much anything can happen, from miraculous holds to upset losses. Interestingly, on the December numbers, Labour would lose both Oldham seats to Reform UK. But that's just a coincidence, as we all know that seat projections are just statistical, no matter how sophisticated the underlying algorithms may be. Or maybe Keir Starmer should reframe his trauma, and think twice before calling voters "far-right" when they voice concerns that don't align with woke groupthink. Because they may well go the whole hog, and actually endorse a far-right MP. This is shown even more vividly in the North East.


A striking case is Tyne and Wear, which accounts for half the seats in the North East, and where Reform UK came second in 10 of the 13 constituencies at the general. The December polls say they are ready to harvest, and would bag four seats there, including unseating Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in Sunderland. The shifting winds would also greatly help the Conservatives in Tees Valley, where they held the Mayoralty at the last locals, and would make them gain four of the five constituencies currently held by Labour. Among them Peter Mandelson's old seat in Hartlepool, the same one that almost prompted Keir Starmer to resign when Labour lost it at a by-election in 2021. And it doesn't get better in Yorkshire.


There we have Labour losing Huddersfield to the Greens, which would be quite humiliating, but probably the least of their worries. Even Reform UK gaining Rotherham, again purely coincidentally and with no link whatsoever with Elon Musk's personal vendetta, would not come close. Neither would the Liberal Democrats taking back Nick Clegg's old seat in Sheffield Hallam. Naw, the biggest blows, in the current state of polling, would be Reform UK unseating Kim Leadbeater, Keir's favourite backbencher as the brains behind the assisted dying bill, in Spen Valley, and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in Pontefract. The latter would be the hardest to swallow as it, or its predecessor seats, has returned Labour MPs continuously since 1935, and Cooper herself at every election since 1997. Would she then try her luck at Strictly or Best Home Cook? Or apply for a slot on Good Morning Britain? Then I guess Keir would spare her these tough choices, and just send her to the House of Lords.

For two weeks, people have been complaining that Leeds Bus Station smells like fish, like there are cows in there, and like a baby’s nappy mixed with Mini Cheddars.
(Roy Wood Jr, Have I Got News For You?, 8 November 2024)

Space Truckin' © Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1972
Fools © Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1971
Mandrake Root © Ritchie Blackmore, Rod Evans, Jon Lord, 1968

Jess Phillips didn’t tell me to fuck off. But by going around and telling everyone she did, she thought it gave her a sort of cachet.
(Diane Abbott)

Labour's prospects are now even worse in the Midlands than in the North. But it is not as surprising as it seems. Remember that the Midlands had deserted Labour in 2010, and remained heavily Conservative until 2024, and switched back to Labour less convincingly than other parts of England. The presence of 'Gaza candidates' of various shades, either Independents or from George Galloway's Workers Party, was also quite significant, especially in the West Midlands county. These candidates will probably have far less leverage in 2029 if they stick to their original narrative, as odds are that Israel and Palestine will no longer be the focus of the world's attention then. But they already have an oven-ready fallback option, the new party Jeremy Corbyn reportedly wants to create to the left of Labour. The West Midlands would be an excellent choice for a trial run of this new party. Recent polls show that Labour's position has considerably weakened there, dragging many of their seats into the danger zone.


Corbyn has already managed to regroup all the 'Gaza candidates' in one new parliamentary group, so surely we can expect more in the near future. It's quite easy to guess what they would stand for, from a soft approach to radicalised political Islamism to supporting Russian positions against aid to Ukraine. This has already proven to be a quite successful approach for La France Insoumise in France and Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht in Germany, and it would probably work even better in England. If this ever materialises and holds some momentum until the next general, it could plausibly unseat Jess Phillips in the Birmingham Yardley constituency she has represented since 2015. Veteran MP Liam Byrne would also lose his seat in neighbouring Birmingham Hodge Hill. Labour can only hope that the 'spontaneous' rebellion will slowly run out of road, and that transitioning into a full-blown party, working on the traditional codes of the radical left, will make them less credible. Otherwise it could spell disaster for Labour, who also have to fight off a massive surge of the Reform UK vote. Interestingly Labour's prospects look far better in the East Midlands.


Instead of the continuous downward spiral seen pretty much everywhere else, the December polls say Labour have recovered part of the ground previously lost in the East Midlands. It may be fragile, though, as they benefited from the Conservatives losing votes to Reform UK, which is not necessarily the best way to protect Labour seats in the long run. But, uncharacteristically, Labour seem to have lost more votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens than to Reform UK in the East Midlands. It could provide them with a strong campaigning soundbite in 2029, that neither the LibDems nor the Greens have the slightest chance of ever gaining a seat in the region, so a vote for Labour is the only 'useful' one to fight off Reform UK. It may even work.

I take it ill to be instructed by the folk of Lincolnshire, one of the most brute and beastly shires in all the realm. Colin Clump and Peter Pisspiddle, and Old Grandpa Gaphead and his goat.
(Henry VIII, Wolf Hall: Defiance, 2024)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1970

No, I would never go to Kent. Why would I go to Kent? What’s in Kent?
(Cynthia Dacres, Three Act Tragedy, 2010)

Right now, we are witnessing a new variant of the Southern Paradox. In these traditionally Conservative regions, the December polls say that Labour would lose fewer seats than in the North, both in number and in proportion of what they bagged at the general. Reform UK would bag the same number of seats as in the North, but that would also be a much smaller proportion of the overall number of seats. This can't be a coincidence, there is at least a correlation, if not a causality. The South also stood out at the general because the big sensation down there was not Labour, but the Liberal Democrats. The South West was even specifically singled out by Ed Davey as the showcase of the LibDems' resurrection, where their strategy of refusing pre-election deals and relying on the voters' wisdom to vote tactically was validated. Oddly, it is also the region where the December polls show the worst setbacks for them.


GB-wide, the Liberal Democrats are showing extraordinary resilience facing a surge of the various shades of right-wing vote. Overall, they are predicted to hold 66 of their current 72 seats, a retention rate of 92%, massively better than Labour, who are predicted to hold only 65% of their July seats. Plus one gain from Labour on top of that, for a total of 67. So it is quite surprising that the South West is the odd one out, where they would lose a quarter of their seats. Down there, the Liberal Democrats bagged only one seat in 2019, then jumped to three after by-elections, and to 22 at the general. Losing five of these now can be interpreted both ways. Either as a sign of fragility in constituencies that were mostly unexpected gains. Or as evidence of resilience, and that only a slight upward push is needed, as all five are predicted to switch back to the Conservatives by less than 5%. I guess that a rerun of Ed Davey's Magical Mystery Tour, complete with the bungee jumping and canoeing in rivers full of shit, could easily fix that. He has the touch. The LibDems' prospects are definitely better in the South East.


The December seat projection for the South East, in slight contrast to the South West, is the best example of the LibDems' resilience in what could be a hostile environment in erstwhile Conservative heartlands. They would lose just one seat, North East Hampshire, which was considered the safest Conservative seat in the whole UK before the last election, and then by only 1%. But the most spectacular evolution is obviously Reform UK gaining ten seats, four from the Conservatives and six from Labour, two in Hampshire and eight in Kent. So we would have a fucking big turquoise blob on the map. to the Far East of the South East, including the constituency that's home to the Eurostar's first stop and the once famous Brexit Lorry Park at Ashford. Now that's fucking karma, innit? Unless that's the natives' way to scare the small boats off, like putting a scarecrow atop the White Cliffs Of Wherever. Though I've been told that blasting Coldplay 24/7 from the clifftops would be more efficient. Finally, there's East Anglia, which looks quite good for the LibDems and not that good for Reform UK, not what I was spontaneously expecting.


Holding their seven seats in the backwaters of the East is good news for the LibDems, but gaining only three must be a disappointment for Reform UK. Especially as they would just strengthen the base they already have in Basildon, which is definitely not the place where you start the next revolution. And extend their beachhead on the easternmost coast from Great Yarmouth to Lowestoft, as it the two towns hadn't suffered enough already during the Great War. This is clearly well below Nigel Farage's expectations in that region, that must have been boosted beyond reasonable by their undeniably successful performance there at the general. There was even a quite apocalyptic vision on the map attached to Stonehaven's recent MRP simulation, showing most of East Anglia as one big Farage Blue blob. Of course that's the simulation predicting Reform UK bagging 120 seats, and we're not quite there yet. It sounds like what Reform UK could achieve under proportional representation, so we can only hope that the majority system will not fail us as it has failed France last year.

The things that happen in an English village would utterly amaze you. Very murky. Under the thatch of “The Lilacs” and “Darjeeling”, dark passions stir.
(Raymond West, Sleeping Murder, 1987)

© Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, 1970

The scrag end, mon ami, it is an animal native to Isleworth. It does not, I think, habituate elsewhere. Might I suggest un morceau de filet mignon, cooked à point avec la sauce béarnaise?
(Hercule Poirot, Hickory Dickory Dock, 1995)

Amidst an ocean of disappointments and setbacks, London looks like the shining beacon of hope for Labour. Quite astonishingly, December polls would deliver the same number of seats for everyone in the Imperial Capital. This is quite a return to shape for Labour, after the November polls predicted that Wes Streeting would lose his seat if there was a rematch against the 'Gaza candidate' who nearly unseated him in July, and the Conservatives would snatch back four seats, including Boris Johnson's old one in the posh Far West End. Obviously Labour can thank the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK for that, as both would get more votes now than at the general, and thusly dampen the effects of a very meagre Conservative surge. If the election was replayed without the handful of 'Gaza candidates' who stood last time to embarrass Starmer in his own back garden, there is no doubt Labour would snatch one or two more seats from the Tories. Only Jeremy Corbyn would remain as a thorn in Sly Keir's arse, until he decides that retirement is not that bad after all.


To conclude on a funnier note, More In Common asked their panel what their predictions for 2025 are. That's definitely one I will keep in a safe place for the whole year, just to have some fun twelve months from now, when most of the predictions are proven totally false. Staring with those on domestic events, some of which look like wishful thinking. There will be no trade deal with the USA, because it would come with too many strings attached, like more leniency and preferential treatment for the opportunistic 'tech bros' who are now sucking Trump's dick 24/7. I also don't think Starmer will go, as there are only two scenarios I can think of. Either polls get even more awful and nobody will volunteer to take over, as it would look too much like a reboot of Rishi Sunak succeeding Liz Truss. Or the polls will get better, and Starmer will pat himself on the back and go on. I nevertheless have to agree with the vox populi that neither NHS waiting lists nor the number of small boats crossing will go down. Neither will we see the four-day week, which would be smoke-and-mirrors anyway, as past experiments prove that it would be more like cramming five days' worth of work into four than an actual 'free time revolution'.


Let's pretend now that we really care about what's happening to the fucking Royals. Asking about Wills becoming King is quite un-English, as it makes you think of the most obvious event that would lead to it. And speculating about that publicly would have got you hanged, drawn and quartered under Henry VIII. Then I guess we could have another Royal Brat if needs be. They have the option to order one to distract the plebs from something really fucking horribilis, like an hitherto-unpublished chapter of Andrew's American Adventures, haven't they? Speculation about world events is more interesting, if not really reassuring. Of course, we will see more extravagant heatwave episodes, because we're collectively too dumb to do anything radical about the consequences of climate change. And we will be fucked by AI on top of that, because we probably deserve it. Elmo will make sure of that, mark my words.


I support the prediction that the war in Ukraine will not end in the next twelve months. Donald Trump has already had to concede it will take at least six months, and that's just the beginning of his epiphany on that issue. There are hundreds of other things to say about Ukraine and Russia, but I will pass for now, and keep that in store for a later article. Just watch this space in the next few weeks. I also believe that China will not attack Taiwan in 2025, but not because they don't want to. Just because they won't be ready to do it successfully until 2027, so we'll have to come back to that one later. I also don't believe in escalation into a global war, whatever that actually means. Not because Trump and Putin will become wiser with age, but because neither will want to risk his own annihilation. And, even if they did, China would intervene to stop it because it's bad for business. That's about as optimistic as I can get now, and we will know soon enough, won't we? So let's just draw the final curtain on 2024 now, and go back to cuddling our dogs. They're the only ones who will always be there for us.

Everybody had a hard year, everybody had a good time, everybody had a wet dream, everybody saw the sunshine
Everybody had a good year, everybody let their hair down, everybody pulled their socks up, everybody put their foot down
(John Lennon, I've Got A Feeling, 1970)

© Albert Collins, Richard Penniman, 1957

Wait For The Ricochet

It was a bit like a laxative finally working, wasn't it? That's what I made of the election this year. It took a long time to come. ...