Yeah, didn't do that, did I Couldn't do it in the end. I couldn't, in good conscience, put my 'X' against a Shadow Welsh Secretary that doesn't seem to give the merest smidgen of a toss about the voice or concerns of the Welsh parliament. They've been in power in Cardiff Bay for 25 years, ever since devolution in Wales has been formally instituted, and it's effectively been the national party's puppet ever since. Mark Drakeford certainly helped re-establish some 'clear red water' between Labour and Welsh Labour in recent years, but that's not entirely surprising given that he was the one who coined the term in the first place. But Vaughan Gething is First Minister now, and Gething is an unpopular figure shrouded in controversy over donations from a convicted criminal, lying to the Covid enquiry about the deletion of WhatsApp messages during the pandemic, and strong-arming the unions to stitch up Jeremy Miles in the leadership contest. But Starmer and the national party want their apparatchik in place, so in place he stays. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very ****ing glad indeed that the next national government will be a Labour one, but I damn well hope they won't be the next Welsh government. I'm a recovering militant leftist if that helps - even joined the Labour party when Corbyn was leader, what a stunningly far-sighted decision that proved to be I mean... I still think the greed-driven oligarchy that masquerades as "capitalism" is still at the root of many societal issues both here and in the US, and I do still think that "because Thatcher and Reagan" is a valid answer to the question of "where did things go wrong?" because it was those two who laid the first steps on the road to the individualist greed-obsessed hypercapitalist society we now have... But at least I never went round waving copies of Das Kapital in people's faces...
The more depressing thought is that a surprising number people looked at the last 14 years and thought, "ooh, more of that, please."
If those exits are accurate that's a shame, I expect it will be the usual cause of the yoof not voting enough and the elderly voting like their lives depended on it. Or it's a reflection of just how good at propaganda the Conservatives actually are.
Think some might be media reporting having a labour starmergeddon meaning a chunk well 'they've clearly got this, i don;t need to bother'... and thus depressing turnout... [plus voter ID shenanigans and postal votes not turning up]
Considering how much Labour has moved to the right the Tories won anyway, the recent rhetoric coming from Starmer is indistinguishable from the likes of Cameron and May.
Sunderland South win the 'first to declare' race... Only thing Sunderland ever win. Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
As I thought, my consistency went/stayed Labour... Lotsa racists up here in particular. Was kipper central back in the day.
Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date EDIT: Turnout seems abysmal across the board. Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date Some turds just wont flush
Closer-run thing than I was expecting, here. The Labour incumbent has always won by a landslide, but their share plummeted 44 percentage points(!) with an independent (running on an explicitly pro-Palestine platform, which could well explain it) picking up the lion's share. Only ~700 votes between 'em - I've never seen it so close! EDIT: And well done to the Reform voters¹, who have thrown half a million quid of public cash directly into Farridge's back pocket. And counting - there's more returns yet. 1: Sarcasm EDIT EDIT: Miscounted - Farridge is now a million pounds richer thanks to those results. That's your money and mine, people. That'll be in an offshore account before the first sitting of Parliament, you mark my words.
I assume your new MP is Jess Phillips, she was just on the beeb talking about how a win is a win, especially as the campaigning and personal attacks by some candidates was so unpleasant.