This is the midpoint in a series looking at the challenges and opportunities for the 7 main Great Britain parties. Today we will look at the Liberal Democrats and see if they can continue their recent triumphs. Understanding the LD’s success 2024 was the most successful election to date for the LDs in terms of seats won and their ratio of seats to votes was twice as high as their previous best of 2005. Election % of Votes won %…
Gareth’s excellent recent PB header “The Challenge for … Reform” suggested that running local councils could give the party valuable executive experience. But does this influx of Reform Councillors actually bring “outsiders” into the system? Or does it just offer “insiders” a new ladder to climb? Meet Stephen Atkinson, newly elected leader of Lancashire County Council. First time elected this year as a Reform councillor, with a career background of having been *checks notes* Council Leader of Ribble Valley Council for the…
This is the third in a series looking at the challenges and opportunities for the 7 main Great Britain parties. Today we will look at the emergence of Reform UK. Breadth vs depth It is worth comparing Reform with the LDs, as the two sharply contrast. Reform got a slightly higher share of the vote in 2024, but the LDs got many more seats. To understand why, we need to look at the distribution of votes for each party. Vote…
This is the second in a series looking at the challenges and opportunities for the 7 main Great Britain parties. This time we will look at Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalists. Plaid have received a very consistent share of the vote (apart from the very first Senedd election). In UK General Elections, they do slightly better in years when the Tories are doing badly. Geography I would recommend Tim Marshall’s Power of Geography books. These show how geography has impacted…
Series introduction This is the first in a series looking at the challenges and opportunities for each of the 7 main Great Britain parties in turn. Before looking at the situation for Labour in detail, we will review what happened in the 2024 election UNS is dead In recent elections, we have seen Scotland having very different elections than the rest of the UK. In 2024, this widened with a large divergence in different areas of England as well, which…
June will see the King’s Birthday honours (even though his birthday is in November) and new peers will be created. Unless Starmer breaks the depressing precedent, new peers will include major party donors, loyal backbenchers and party officials, and other people that party leaders like. A Guardian columnist will call for an elected second chamber, which would mean yet more politicians. Some new peers will be good: respected former Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, think tank bosses or policy-oriented academics. But…
For every amount of indignation “surrendering our territory for no reason” that can be stoked, India has stoked quite the opposite feeling of anti colonial indignation at the previous status quo, now leading to their day of triumph, for It’s come to this win for India after a long campaign by them sponsoring the fight for this outcome. We own it in eyes of UN. We don’t have to yield to UN court judgement’s, but we do need to be…
1. Introduction “The New Leviathans” is a book by John Gray. It is not an easy read. It is overwritten and despite its short length it is too long, taking frequent digressions: so much so in fact it may be two books mashed into one or repurposed. But it does introduce the concept of “hyperliberalism”: a theoretical framework that unites “woke” and identity politics and academic liberalism under an umbrella term and provides a history. So let’s have a look….