The Trump campaign has a great deal of thanks to give to Evan Vucci. For it is he that has taken what will be the defining photo of the 2024 US election. Whether you like it or not, the picture is not dissimilar to that most iconic of American photos – the flag raising atop Mount Suribachi during the final stages of the Pacific War (Iwo Jima). This I believe will resonate particularly with older voters and strengthens Trump’s (Although…
OFSTED. At the moment, OFSTED is undergoing a review led by Christine Gilbert into its performance and practices. Why Gilbert, I have no idea. It seems unlikely that any changes will happen before the review concludes. Labour have pledged to bring in report cards instead of overall judgements, but how that works in practice, if it ever does, remains unclear. The unloved curriculum framework, which may be politely described as a fucking train crash, seems set to stay for now…
Are all historians fascists? One might be forgiven for thinking so. Consider the ‘great’ leaders of history. Who comes to mind? (At this point I feel I should apologise to historians for butchering good scholarship to make a rhetorical point, but please bear with me.) On the basis of historical precedent it’s hard to argue that historians looking back on the early 21st century would pick anyone other than Putin as our greatest leader: I hope it doesn’t need to…
What happened in London at the General Election? As elsewhere, London was a story of Labour success and Conservative disaster. Of the 75 Constituencies, Labour won 59 (+10), the Conservatives 9 (-12), the Liberal Democrats 6 (+3) and the remaining seat was won by Jeremy Corbyn standing as an Independent in Islington North. As for vote share, Labour won 43% (-5), Conservatives 20.5% (-11.5%) and the Liberal Democrats 11% (-4). The Greens won 10%, Reform 9% and the other 6.5%…
When the Welsh Assembly was approved in 1997 by a wafer-thin margin of 50.3% to 49.7%, it was for just 60 members elected by a silly iteration of the D’Hondt top up system.* This was because Wales wasn’t an important place and the Assembly wasn’t an important institution. Blair called it a ‘parish council’ and many parish councils felt slighted at the comparison. The now Senedd Cymru by contrast is a fairly significant law making body with extensive powers over…
A quick update on the 2024 PB Predictions Competition. We now have the result for the UK General Election question which you may remember asked entrants to predict the election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%). Answer: Labour 172 seat majority (±10% range = 155 to 189). Four people guessed the Labour majority to within 10%: @Cyclefree @NickPalmer @TheWhiteRabbit and closest of all @GF2, whose guess was a Labour majority of 180. Under the scoring rules they each get 20…
As the title says, and many here will have gathered from my posts, I am left wing and not in the Labour Party. So you may expect me to be annoyed that Labour have got a massive majority to do with what they wish. And, to some extent, I am. But, when it comes to the actual results of the election and staying up on election night, I was and still am pretty happy – and so were a lot…
1) The collapse of the SNP. They lost half a million votes (42% of their 2019 total) and with it 39 seats. Its remaining 9 seats are not remotely safe – 7 of them are in the top 10 most marginal seats in Scotland. 2) The collapse of the Tories. They lost nearly 400k votes – more than half their 2019 total. That only lost them one seat vs 2019, but they are just not as powerful as they were….