Morning music
Saturday quiz
Well, this week I return to winning form: 8/10, compared to the 6/10 scored by political journalist John Rentoul. I did not know the answers to questions 7 and 10.
Tweets seen
Cameron-Levita in his usual bubble of total unreality. The idiot who brought us the war on Gaddafi (result— millions of Africans flooding Europe), fake “austerity” (result— misery for millions, as well as lower economic growth than anywhere in the then EU, USA etc), and other misconceived policy choices, most recently the increased support for the brutal and shambolic dictatorship of Zelensky in Kiev.
Ursula Haverbeck— arguably the bravest person in Europe.
She thinks that she is terribly clever, and making the old lady seem outdated, “bigoted”, “gammon” etc. Ha. Laugh now if you want to…
The pendulum may start to swing back now that pine martens are being reintroduced in several parts of the country; pine martens prey on grey squirrels but not (much) on red squirrels.
“The Tories are unlikely to attract many Reform UK voters given…
– Only 36% would vote Tory if a Reform UK candidate wasn’t standing
– 61% are voting Reform despite thinking they won’t win in their seat
– 75% say the Tories and Labour are as bad as each other
– 74-76% dislike Rishi Sunak and the party.“
Desperate. I had not heard of that MP. Looks a bit of a careerist; tried to become a Police and Crime Commissioner at one point (came third in the election): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Moore_(MP).
Keighley has, with 2 exceptions, been a “bellwether” constituency since 1959, so is likely to fall to Labour this time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keighley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s.
I cannot think that those attempts at confusing the voters (of High Peak and also Keighley) will work. After all, most people vote according to party label, so when the voter is faced with a ballot paper, the “X” is placed by the party more than the candidate’s name.
I have to admit that the Italian woman “brushes up well”, as they say…
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgia_Meloni].
Clacton
Had to look that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakanda.
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Labour candidate, seems to come out of a black activist (African; Ghanaian) background in Nottingham: see https://heartofthenation.migrationmuseum.org/stories/sylvia-owusu-nepaul/.
About 25. Never had a non-political job, in fact has never had any job except a couple of p/t “internships”. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jovan-owusu-nepaul-3a95b17b/.
The candidate’s aunt has also been socio-politically active: see https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/7138/1/Owusu-Kwarteng_Between_Two_Lives_2010.pdf.
This Labour candidate is a kind of less-prominent Femi Oluwole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femi_Oluwole
Labour has, since 2010, when the present constituency of Clacton was established, never scored higher than 25.4% of the votes cast there; that was in 2017. The lowest was 11.2%, at the by-election of that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s.
Labour has no chance at Clacton, a famously “left behind” and white British area. To choose an African “eternal student” as candidate is almost insulting to the voters there. Moreover, one whose social media posts make clear his hostility to the real people of the UK.
Despite Labour’s overall “popularity by default” in the nationwide campaign, I should not be surprised if its vote-share at Clacton were to dip below 10%.
The frightening thing is not that such a candidate is standing in Clacton, where Labour has little or no chance; it is that, across the country, similarly-hostile individuals are likely to be elected next month for Labour. God help the poor English people of these islands.
Late tweets seen
Not quite what I want to see: too many Con MPs. A couple of unexpected wrinkles too, such as Reform UK with 7 seats, and the SNP with 37, more than twice the number predicted elsewhere.
While the Con Party is toast pretty much whatever happens between now and 4 July, in some respects the General Election is quite open. A substantial minority are either undecided as to for which party they might vote, or are undecided as to whether to bother to vote at all.
That may mean a better than expected Con Party performance, a better than expected Labour (or even LibDem) performance but, most intriguingly, perhaps an even better than expected Reform UK vote, either as a targeted anti-Con vote, as a serious “I am dissatisfied” protest vote, or an angry “F.U., System parties!” vote.
The election is shaping up to be both interesting and important, perhaps even historic.
So will you, probably!
As people, from what I have seen online etc, ex-officer Mercer and his lady wife seem like a pleasant couple, but we are talking serious politics here.
Mercer has increased his majority steadily and considerably since first elected in 2015, but the general unpopularity of his party, his poor performance as a minister, and his personal moneygrasping would seem to leave him exposed. Also, Reform UK may well eat into his 2019 vote. Well, we shall soon know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Moor_View_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 