In a time when the Country has the worst collective political leadership since we had mad kings on the throne, the local election results coming through offer a small glimmer of hope.
In the north of England, voters have finally begun to turn away from both Labour and the Tories. This is good news, both parties are led by incompetent and perhaps even malevolent cabals - not voting for either at the current time is good. Perhaps a message will be communicated that they should both radically change their approaches.
In addition, the independents have risen, across the Country lots of councils have fallen to groups of independent people, tired with the poor and partisan service from Labour or Tory and keen to take on responsibility at grass roots level. So far Independents have won 25% of the seats they have contested - a huge movement.
Sadly, the Lib Dems have done well as they return to their traditional role of the protest vote. In many places, there are only 3 candidates and so if you don't vote Labour or Tory then the Lib Dems get your protest vote as a sort of anti-vote. We will see if there are euro elections in a couple of weeks as to how people vote when there are some positive alternatives such as the Brexit party for of the CHUK group.
Still, the populace is at least reacting to the mess that is Westminster, hopefully next time out we can make sure they are all de-selected. That will be my take on it, every MP from the 2017 slate should be kicked out so we can start afresh, none to be spared after the worst Parliament in two centuries.
13 comments:
My choice was:
Tory (Crap)
Labour (Crap)
LibDems (Crap)
Green (Crap & Nutters)
So I voted 'NONE'.
Unfortunately there was no vote here but I'm good and ready for the Euro elections and just hope I get the chance to vote for a Brexit candidate. Otherwise I will just have to spoil my ballot paper which would be a first for me.
I think there should be a complete separation between national political parties and local parties.
The major parties can have no involvement in local politics and vice versa.
May get more people interested in local politics at least.
Although I dare say this would end up getting ruined by intermediate groups like Momentum, which would just bridge the gap between the two.
The rise of Greens fills me with fear. Greens are utterly useless on the population growth/immigration - many are basically open borders types. The UK is being concreted over for new housing and they don't seem bothered by it.
@ Anon
I don't think that 5.9% of the UK being developed is being concreted over - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901294
Wow, that's a relief. I thought that being on target to lose 1,200 seats was a matter of concern - but Brandon has jusr assured me on the news that we're all solidly behind Mrs May, and the result is just a nudge from the country supporting her Withdrawal Treaty and all Parliament has to do is agree it and everything will be back to normal.
That's nice.
It's the comments after that amuse me. Complete spin and an inability to face reality. But the biggest culprit is May.
She's like some dungeon mistress intent on forcing misery on those that follow her. Parliamentary majority gone. Local authority control gone. Manifesto not delivered. Brexit not delivered. The only way is her way and she'll continue with the pain until it is her way, her deal.
The Stop words don't work. "Nigel, Boris, Jacob!" None of them will stop her until it is total subservience to her view. My only concern is that there are too many masochists in the party that actually like this treatment. Most normal people bail out as we can see in these elections.
1,331 Conservative councillors lost. 25% of those we had last week.
Yep, Passchendaele.
And in a couple of weeks she's throwing the rest of the Party onto the machine guns.
Matt - what are the figures for England, already way over-populated? I'm well aware that there's not much new housing in Caithness and Sutherland, Plynlimon or the Cairngorms. England is where 88% of the UK population lives, on about 55% of the land.
England's population density was 406/km2 in 2011, and we've added another 2 million people (c4%) since then, which gets us up to 420 - the density levels of Holland, India, and Haiti. The only large countries with greater density than England are South Korea, Rwanda and Bangladesh.
The rural area where I live is slowly (and not so slowly) becoming suburban. Villages near towns are swallowed into the towns, and the roads between towns are dotted with business parks and small industrial units. In the villages, every chunk of green or large garden is being built on. Take a run up the A41 to Aylesbury - it's ringed with new development, and now more is going round it. You can say the same for Banbury, Buckingham, Oxford. Even places with few jobs like Pembroke, Spennymoor or Redcar are building, Middlesborough is ringed by new builds.
I voted UKIP and an independent. In the low, meat-world space I occupy the Tories are dead and the 1300 seat loss yesterday supports this.
May's Remain worked then, didn't it !
What Remainers never factor in is the Remain-with-Labour economic cliff edge.
Never mentioned. All we hear is the Leave economic 'cliff edge'.
So prepare for a Labour government or some sort of awful leftist coalition. The Tory brand has gone the way of Ratner.
Anon - the same with development here. Oh. The crime rate has rocketed too, previously unheard of assaults on police and 'county lines' stuff that there was no market for a couple of years ago. And the hip-hop graffiti to go with it.
They're determined to Londonise everywhere.
EK - yes, lots of county lines stuff in the local paper - guys (black if from London, Pakistani if from Brum) arrested in Travelodge or Premier Inn rooms with drugs/scales/weapons - and also cases of "cuckooing" with some local druggies, using their place as a dealing base for a week or so.
Bear in mind that in many places there were only the Tories (Blue Socialists) and Labour (Red Socialists) to vote for. Even if only one person votes one of those was going to get in. We had the added... err... benefit of the Lib Dims. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Wait till the EU elections on the 23rd. There are a lot more third parties in there and it will be a lot worse. May is sending hundred of Farages to Brussels.
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