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I am glad that I live nowhere near that factory.
The brutal and corrupt Zelensky regime is having to use press-gangs to enforce conscription, there are no more volunteers, and the Kiev regime is running out of cannon-fodder. The front is almost a death sentence; many are deserting.
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Upcoming by-elections
Somerton and Frome
The by-election was triggered by the standing-down of the Conservative Party MP David Warburton, following multiple allegations (some admitted) of misconduct: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Warburton].
In 2019, Warburton received nearly 56% of the vote, with the LibDems in second place on 26%.
Labour has no chance here and, on paper, this would normally be another easy win for the Con Party, but the manner of departure of the last MP, added to the anger across the country aimed at the Con Party government of Sunak, may mean a LibDem by-election upset, particularly as this is merely a by-election.
In 2019, only 4 candidates stood (Con, Lab, LibDem, and Green); at the by-election, there are also Christian People’s Alliance, UKIP, Reform UK, and an Independent.
The bookies’ favourite is the LibDem, a lady from a local farming family who is also a local councillor. She seems to hit all the buttons, even the sex one, being female after the defaults of male MP Warburton (sex pest allegations, and connected cocaine abuse).
The bookmakers have the LibDem, Sarah Dyke, as even-money favourite, with the Con Party candidate on 20-1, and Labour at 250-1. The rest are not even quoted. You could probably get 1000-1 against any of them.
Experience shows that bookmakers are a poor guide to by-election results, but the LibDem looks pretty sure to win this, especially when many Labour supporters will be voting tactically, and many former Con voters displaying apathy and/or unwillingness to vote for the present Government.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip
The by-election of course triggered by the standing-down of “Boris” Johnson.
The 2019 election attracted 12 candidates, because the seat of the sitting Prime Minister is always popular. “Boris”-idiot won with 52.6% in 2019, with Labour garnering 37.6%. Only one other candidate had a saved deposit (the LibDem, on 6.3%).
The by-election has 17 candidates, among them the TV actor, Laurence Fox, for Reclaim. The bookmakers only rate two seriously— Con and Labour. The Labour Party candidate is quoted at just better than even-money, with Conservative Party candidate at 9/1. The Labour price has not altered much, but the Conservative has gone out from an opening 3/1 to 9/1, and the LibDems are now at 1000/1. The third-placed runner is now Reform UK (but only on 300/1).
“A nurse sitting with her husband drinking coffee said: “The biggest issue is ULEZ. I’ve retired from the NHS after 49 years. What about the carers who can’t make visits any more?”
People in Uxbridge tend not to conform to media stereotypes, for example that the NHS is in an unbearable state of crisis. The nurse said: “If I had my time again I’d do the same job again. I love my job.” As she walks round Uxbridge she is often greeted by her former patients.
How will she vote in the by-election? “Up until Jeremy Corbyn I was a Labour person,” she said. “Labour looked after the schools, the hospitals and the elderly.
“But the party has changed now and I’m afraid I have no confidence in them. Keir Starmer wouldn’t come out and actually go against Sadiq Khan [on ULEZ] in a television interview, when he was asked about him.“
[Conservative Home]
“‘It can’t be any worse’: In Boris Johnson’s back yard, Britons are desperate for a change.
Uxbridge, like Britain, is in a rut.
The town is where the capital’s westward sprawl ends. Two Tube lines serving central London finish their journeys here, as picturesque shades of green mingle with the gray and brown hues of suburban developments. But its high streets are shrinking and the local hospital is one of the worst in Britain – rated “inadequate” by the sector’s watchdog.
And nationwide, soaring inflation, public sector strikes and the aftermath of Brexit have left families poorer and services creaking to the point of collapse. Renewing a passport, taking a train, buying groceries, seeing a doctor – virtually everything is more difficult in Britain than it once was.
Change is in the air, and Labour is set to benefit. Opinion polls confidently predict the party, led by Keir Starmer, a former senior prosecutor, will win power in a general election expected next year.
But Uxbridge is a test case for that theory, and tensions are high. “You can see the national polls, just like I can see, but these are real votes,” Steve Reed, the party’s shadow justice secretary tasked with running the local campaign, told CNN on a hot afternoon on the high street. He predicts a “tighter race” than some media have suggested.
A handful of media outlets, including CNN, were denied the chance to interview Labour’s candidate or join a canvassing session, an unusually skittish move from a party tipped to win a by-election.
“People are not stupid. People understand the challenges facing the country,”
Some voters are more blunt. “They’re basically saying we’ll carry on business as normal,” says Mick, 61, who runs a food stall near Uxbridge station and has voted Labour his entire life. “So why are we voting?”
“I’d like to think [Labour would] like to do more for the working people,” Tracy Peabody, a dental nurse and mother of three young boys, told CNN on a high street in Ruislip Manor. “But I can’t help thinking it’s two wings from the same bird, all singing from the same song sheet,” she added of Labour and the Conservatives.
Just three-and-a-half years after one of the party’s worst-ever electoral defeats, the outcome of Thursday’s vote in Uxbridge will indicate how far Labour has come.“
[CNN]
Maybe not so obvious as at Somerton and Frome, but here too it looks as if the Conservative Party is facing an uphill struggle. Uxbridge is a more typical contest though, maybe, compared to Somerton and Frome, and one in which many voters despise all the System parties, and particularly Con and Lab. A battle of apathies?
Selby and Ainsty
The Selby and Ainsty constituency is unusual in that it has been represented since creation in 2010 by only one MP, a Conservative, who seems to be abandoning ship in the moral certainty that the national unpopularity of the Sunak government will wash him away at the next general election.
I do not know why the departed MP, Nigel Adams, chose to stand down in 2023 rather than wait until 2024 and the next general election. Maybe he did not want the opprobrium of having been voted out. Rumour has it that he wanted a peerage and, when not given one, resigned in order to lash out at his own party. Maybe.
Adams won his four elections convincingly, and increased his vote share steadily from 49.4% in 2010 to 60.3% in 2019.
Labour scored about a quarter of the vote in 2010, 2015, and 2019 but, interesting to see, managed over a third of the vote in 2017, when Corbyn was still Labour leader.
12 candidates are contesting the by-election, but this will be between Con and Lab. The bookmakers have Labour just better than even-money, but Con on about 13/2. A few weeks ago, the result seemed more speculative.
Political websites and newspapers have taken an interest in the Selby contest, perhaps because it may give a clue as to the Northern “Red Wall” seats.
“I’d like to think they’d like to do more for the working people,” Tracy Peabody, a dental nurse and mother of three young boys, told CNN on a high street in Ruislip Manor. “But I can’t help thinking it’s two wings from the same bird, all singing from the same song sheet,” she added of Labour and the Conservatives.
Just three-and-a-half years after one of the party’s worst-ever electoral defeats, the outcome of Thursday’s vote in Uxbridge will indicate how far Labour has come.“
“Labour and the Conservative party may have found a tougher opponent than one another as they prepare to fight a by-election in Selby and Ainsty this week: entrenched despondency among an electorate that’s tired of Westminster drama and the challenges posed by the cost of living crisis.”
“Selby local Rachel Young paused while walking around the shops to watch the candidates for Thursday’s poll take part in a televised hustings for the BBC in the town centre last week.
She told PoliticsHome that she still has not decided who to vote for, but thinks that many people she knows will simply not bother at all.”
[Politics Home]
See also: https://unherd.com/2023/07/westminster-has-failed-selby/
For me, what will be most interesting will be to see whether Labour wins because people have voted out of enthusiasm (unlikely) or simply because former Conservative voters have given up bothering to vote (more likely). The numbers will tell the story.
My guess is that the LibDems will win Somerton and Frome; a meaningless protest vote. As to the others, Labour will probably score in both, but by default only, because former Conservative voters will just stay home. Only very silly people believe that Labour-label in government will be much, if at all, better than the present shambles.
More tweets
I agree with the second tweet.
All the stuff in the msm about barges and cruise liners is flim-flam designed to obscure a few basic facts, such as that one barge can “house” 500 migrant-invaders. On many days, twice that number arrive in 24 hours! So you would need about 400-800 or more barges extra even in one year.
Also, the number of migrant-invaders coming “legally” is ten times the number arriving in rubber boats.
The UK was doomed as a decent place to live once the proportion of non-whites went beyond about 5% (and we are already at about 20%). The same goes for much of western and central Europe.
The above two tweeters might like to consider whether or not our advanced world civilization, which is 95% or even 99% based on white European-origined people, “works” (overall) when compared to the sorts of societies ruled by blacks, such as most of Africa, Haiti, Jamaica etc…
“Deluded” hardly covers it, but it seems that many blacks believe the same as those two, and their crazed beliefs are facilitated by anti-white non-blacks, either white European-origined or (usually) Jewish.
The people are right— a majority of them are of the view that a Labour government under Starmer will make their lives no better (or that they do not know).
Meaning— the present Government is trash, and Labour is also trash.
Late tweets
That should read “1 billion” not “1 million“, of course.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 