I used to not mind the Tories much, because they represented a sort of gentle stagnation, a status quo. There are merits to status quo and a lack of change. Now every party wants to upend the entire cart and draw their own favourite cartoon willies with the contents, and the Tories really like the cartoon willy of rampant free market capitalism, globalism and wealth concentration, which isn't actually very conservative, it's driving all the biggest and worst changes in the world right now. Edit - off topic but this apparently is Clint Mansell, the film soundtrack composer, and that blew my mind a bit
Every alternative to a capitalist society that’s been tried has always had to come back to at least some aspect of capitalism. Trade & markets, in one way or another, seem to just be a fundamental part of human nature. But the thing about capital-C “Capitalism” as an economic concept is that it requires strong controls on the market and competition. Because the goal is to keep capital moving through the system, and without those controls, capital instead accumulates in a small number of places. You end up exactly where the USA is now, where simply becoming ill can bankrupt you even when you have very expensive medical cover. It seems to be those very same footsteps that mainstream politics in this country wants us to follow. And it’s not new. I’ve worked in financial services a long time; every time industry “regulators” are dragged kicking and screaming into finally doing the right thing for people, the industry just finds new and ever more creative ways to **** us over again. They do it because there’s no incentive to not **** people over: there is no penalty, there is no punishment. We had a chance to send a strong message 17 years ago, but we basically let the financial services industry get away with it and instead chose Farage, Brexit, and Trump. And we’re the ones who pay for it, with our money, our health, our well-being, and our lives. Lest this come across as some Marxist screed against the evils of capitalism, I am actually in favour of functional capitalism. But in the West, we don't have functional capitalist economies - we have oligarchies.
That's the thing.though it's not either capitalism or something else there are a different forms of capitalism although we're led to believe that's not the case. Unfortunately we all seem to be led down the path to oligarchic capitalism rather than something better for society.
IMG_6180 by Zoon posted 9 May 2026 at 08:43 Nice to see big Greens and reasonable Lib Dems gains. Obviously no-one should be happy about Reform gains, but decimating Tories and Labour is a good thing. We need a proper choice instead of Idiot 1 vs Idiot 2.
Well much of Reform voters have been from people who voted Tory (wonder if they just followed the MPs when they defected to ToryForm) and from people who didn't vote last time. In Scotland some brash young Reform guy was exclaiming they'll be the opposition up here, they have to share second spot with Labour as it turns out.
Christ knows who is voting for Reform in Scotland. I noticed that a lot of Reform literature for the Holyrood elections was full of tough talk about cracking down on immigration to Scotland, despite immigration being fully reserved to Westminster and therefore something that MSPs have no control over. Typical Reform lies really. Edit: and of course zero challenge from the media about this particular lie, which is due to a combination of media complicity and London-centric media ignorance over reserved and devolved powers.
Yeah with -557 on Tory seats, and +1442 on Reform it’s pretty obvious that a chunk of that is going to be defectors and votes going with the same candidate in the new party. I’d be surprised if too many of those seats swung to whole other candidates in other parties. But probably some did. At least Greens and Lib Dems seem to have taken a chunk of the Labour losses though. That’s better than I was expecting.
True to form, Reform were #2 in Wales after Plaid Cymru. However before the election, all the other parties said they wouldn't team with Reform in a coalition situation. Hopefully, they all stick to that.
I assume it will be Plaid/Labour since that makes 52 seats. To form a government against Plaid Reform would need the support of Labour and the Conservatives, which strikes me as somewhat unlikely. Forming a coalition with Plaid seems even less likely.
That was the trend everywhere tbh, the number of times the election was treated as some sort of plebiscite against Keir is shocking when in reality it should have been more about who do you trust more to not **** up your garbage collection.
Well, without wanting to be disagreeable, Holyrood's powers extend considerably beyond "garbage collection". There's quite a big difference between council elections and Scottish/Welsh parliamentary elections, and of course a difference between those and Westminster general elections.
We got the same here in Wales. Like… WTF is the Welsh government going to do about an issue over which it has no control?! But there’s one issue around immigration that Reform has taken exception to that is a Welsh government programme, the “Nation of Sanctuary” programme. Which, in reality, basically means, “make it a tiny tiny bit easier for people to settle and integrate”. Apparently it’s a colossal waste of money for the Welsh government, what with spending £10 million a year on it… out of annual budget of £28 billion… For the last 6 months, I have been sick to the back teeth of hearing about “the council elections on 7th May”. It’s absolutely emblematic of a media ecosystem that just… doesn’t give a flying **** about anything other than England. At least you’ve got some decent Scottish media institutions based in Scotland (from what I understand, anyway), Wales gets piss all.
Ah but you see the solution is clearly voting for a party that thinks even that level of control is too much and wants away with the devolved governments... /s
So we're at the 'If not him, then who?' stage. Burnham? Not an MP. No guarantees he'd win a by-election. Not as popular as he or his supporters think he is. Streeting? Someone even less popular than Starmer and he's only as popular as that bc, compared to the alternatives, no-one knows who he is. Rayner? One of the least unpopular Labour MPs but of all the realistic potentials she's probably going to attract the most negative media attention. Tax affairs, Northern™, and a Woman... it'll be a media shitshow. [EDIT: I may also have gotten her and Jess Phillips confused...] Reeves? Description intentionally left blank. Chaos with Ed Milliband? Probably would say no even if the party offered it to him on a platter. Khan? Basically the problems of Burnham [chiefly: not an mp], Milliband [would probably say no], and Rayner [all the 'London/UK has fallen' shite the shitrags and socials pump already pump out about him would be dialled up to 111] combined.
It’s almost like the Greens exist only to show the dangers of voting for unproven political parties by showing they don’t have a ****ing clue… https://www.standard.co.uk/news/pol...illors-quit-immediately-elected-b1282285.html Four of the seats they won, one changed her mind, three actually ineligible and couldn’t take the post.
Now do the same for Reform... They've also had a shed load of councillors resign before they'd even taken up their posts, including ones who didn't realise they don't actually get paid (beyond a very small allowance of a few thousand a year)
