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[Magmacube_tr]

Also don't get the whole "I identify as a cat" drama. When I was a kid half the people in my class identified as a giraffe, a lion or whatever. I went from snake to spider, the only lasting effect it had on me was a strong desire to live in a cave like a trapdoor spider. NO VISITORS ALLOWED UNLESS YOU'RE EDIBLE

Ah, but you see nowadays the trann- err... "trans people" (Who, let's face it, are actually just mentally ill and/or attention seekers despite what the scientists say because they just want job security so they make stuff up) exist and want to indoctrinate and rape our kids, so we have to make mountains out of molehills, even if the molehills don't exist, to preserve the future of Western Civilisation^TM

And the Earth is Flat™.

[Great Order]

Pretty sure the earth is within a cube of time, dude.

[Magmacube_tr]

Pretty sure the earth is within a cube of time, dude.

I-Inside a-a-a cube?! That's why my stomach has been killing me all week?! I am going to the hospital ASAP!

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, Britain is about as fucked up as the US.

[Loud Whispers]

And the Earth is Flat™.

Actually the Earth is a Fiat car

[hector13]

Well, by-election day came and went, Tories managed to keep Boris’ vacated seat by the seat of their pants (495 votes) while the Lib Dems overcame a 19,000 vote Tory majority to claim… a seat in the West Country, whereas Labour over came a 20,000 vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Aintsby seat.

Not as embarrassing as it could’ve been, but acceptably so, I suppose.

[Starver]

They set their expectations at "we're probably going to lose them all", so it's a relative win for them to barely scrape through with Uxbridge. But hardly time for actual champagne parties at CPHQ, you'd think (though I wouldn't rule them out).

By-elections tend to be Protest Votes, especially against the current governing party (where it's theirs to lose/not win), but the swings can be greater or lesser.

Spoiler: A disorganised summary of what I read in the figures (click to show/hide)

It looks like Frome swung by about 28%, Selby by 24% (16th and 23rd largest in all of the post-WW2 ones I checked - but I may have missed some). Quite a bit short of the topmost 44ish% record (which includes 2014 Clacton swing to UKIP from Conservative, purely by dint of the incumbant switching parties and transfering his mostly retained support across to his new party-stance).

But the turnouts are down on GE, too (as is often their wont). The total winning prior GE vote exceeds the 'top two' vote counts added together in both Selby and Frome, and it's only a little bit below the Uxbridge version from yesterday.

It seems to more put off those who are perhaps more moderate, and frustrated by it all, leaving just those who are most incited (for/against whichever side(s) of the issue(s) are relevent upon that day and in that place) to size up against each other just like those "red/blue mob" games that seem to keep being advertised to me for my tablet. (Whatever "x2" or "+100"-like 'gates' each party might have tried to pass through, on the way to the final confrontation, you'd probably have to be in the very midst of the campaigning to see the very concentrated efforts to rally the relevent locals to step up and be counted in the favour of any particular faction.)

Mostly (there are exceptions), the tide goes against the party with most to lose, but does not rise much(/at all) for those who would possibly win. Either way, usually it results in a more marginal win for those that do than they'd hope/expect in other circumstances. But it sends a message. (If snap-by-elections could ever be done within a week of the trigger, possibly the blood of the electorate may still be high enough to not need carefully tuned campaigns to try to rouse things more than they annoy most people.)

[Loud Whispers]

It is so lamentable the Labour party chose to eliminate Corbyn just to replace him with Keir. Labour party would be sailing to an easy supermajority if they actually offered something different than "we are the party that accepts megacorp donations" vs "we are also the party that accepts megacorp donations"

[hector13]

Not allowed left-wing folk to be in charge brah. New New Labour ftw.

[EuchreJack]

It is so lamentable the Labour party chose to eliminate Corbyn just to replace him with Keir. Labour party would be sailing to an easy supermajority if they actually offered something different than "we are the party that accepts megacorp donations" vs "we are also the party that accepts megacorp donations"

At least in the United States, our political parties are better at hiding that they're both "the party that accepts megacorp donations".
What is REALLY going in the United States is that a few politicians are finally realizing the crisis over global warming and trying to reduce carbon emissions by not buying fossil fuels.  That makes the Oil Companies VERY unhappy, so they fund the crap out of anyone that can keep the US buying fossil fuels.

Also look at NASA and the MegaCorp(s) that supply them.  For fun, track how NASA opened up its projects to more than just SpaceX and how Musk heavily backed the Republicans.  I'm curious which started "first", but it's clear that Bezos and smaller companies have benefited from Esucks not having the same loving relationship he had with Trumpy.  Of course, SpaceX is too big and imbedded in NASA, but you can make a parallel to the Oil Companies above.

And of course, there is the BIG Megacorporate interests that literally nobody ever talks about: Pharmaceutical companies.  They fund the crap out of everybody.

Literally all the Culture Wars bullshit is just white noise so people don't get what is going on.

Not allowed left-wing folk to be in charge brah. New New Labour ftw.

What even is "left-wing"? Sounds like a smoke screen so nobody says "workers rights", "properly funded services", or "tax the rich".

[Starver]

Keir[1] is still pushing (more than his opposite number) Workers Rights, funded services and rich-taxes[3], it's not like he's Total Tory like some would say.

"Dissapointingly realistic", perhaps, for the more radical left of the "nationalise everything, bleed the rich dry, state-funded everything for everyone else" type. Of course the balance of underpromising (with the hope of overdelivering) might not help him defeat the more populist promises from the types who go the other way by default.

But it's a long way to the likely election. Like tyre-changing strategies in F1, no doubt everyone's working to what they think is the best pacing (or the worst in respect of their opponents) when it comes to making radical announcements or just coasting a bit to not fly off at a curve. (With an eye on whether adverse weather wets the course, or the sudden change of circumstances that puts into effect the restrictions/opportunities of having the Safety Car sent out for some unpredictable reason. To over-extend the analogy.)

The chances are even not that unreasonable that it won't be Starmer pitted against Sunak. Without making any predictions  about which one (if not both) ends up irrelevent. Far more fun to consider that than to dive too deeply into the waxes and wanings of the currently assumed preparations for battle.


[1] Leader Keir, not "Baby Of The House[2]" Keir, just elected.

[2] They keep on saying "Officially known as.." I'm fairly sure this is a relative neologism, but I don t care to check that.

[3] Fewer rich-exemptions, at least.

[hector13]

It is so lamentable the Labour party chose to eliminate Corbyn just to replace him with Keir. Labour party would be sailing to an easy supermajority if they actually offered something different than "we are the party that accepts megacorp donations" vs "we are also the party that accepts megacorp donations"

At least in the United States, our political parties are better at hiding that they're both "the party that accepts megacorp donations".
What is REALLY going in the United States is that a few politicians are finally realizing the crisis over global warming and trying to reduce carbon emissions by not buying fossil fuels.  That makes the Oil Companies VERY unhappy, so they fund the crap out of anyone that can keep the US buying fossil fuels.

Also look at NASA and the MegaCorp(s) that supply them.  For fun, track how NASA opened up its projects to more than just SpaceX and how Musk heavily backed the Republicans.  I'm curious which started "first", but it's clear that Bezos and smaller companies have benefited from Esucks not having the same loving relationship he had with Trumpy.  Of course, SpaceX is too big and imbedded in NASA, but you can make a parallel to the Oil Companies above.

And of course, there is the BIG Megacorporate interests that literally nobody ever talks about: Pharmaceutical companies.  They fund the crap out of everybody.

Literally all the Culture Wars bullshit is just white noise so people don't get what is going on.

Not allowed left-wing folk to be in charge brah. New New Labour ftw.

What even is "left-wing"? Sounds like a smoke screen so nobody says "workers rights", "properly funded services", or "tax the rich".

Basically. Jeremy Corbyn was an old school Labour guy, an actual socialist. He came to power as Labour leader essentially by accident, as I think he needed to be endorsed by a certain number of Labour MPs i order to be put forward, and if I remember correctly, that only really happened so there was a spread of views in the leadership contest.

Evidently the party membership are still old school too, as they elected him their leader. The media essentially manufactured an antisemitism smear against him (despite te fact he’s campaigned for Jews in various ways for a long time, though he has also associated with folks who don’t like Jews, and is very well known for pushing for Palestine’s rights) which eventually resulted in Labor having their worst election results in 84 years and him standing down.

Now we’re back to the New Labour types that are Tory-lite, and appear to also be trying to remove old school socialists from the party.

[Great Order]

Does make me wonder if we're going to see a new OG Labour style party crop up some time.

I've seen a few movements like that, but the party's been more "X issue, oh and we're socialist", and often they're stillborn because for some reason they don't seem to vet their candidates so they wind up with Tom the Socialist who's also got a history of going on Twitter and spewing racism.

[Loud Whispers]

Does make me wonder if we're going to see a new OG Labour style party crop up some time.

I've seen a few movements like that, but the party's been more "X issue, oh and we're socialist", and often they're stillborn because for some reason they don't seem to vet their candidates so they wind up with Tom the Socialist who's also got a history of going on Twitter and spewing racism.

It's not impossible, stuff like the Brexit Party or UKIP show how a single unifying issue can cause a party to appear ex nihilo with national appeal rather than the usual problem of independents being hyper-localised to the point of being unknown one post-code over. There would just need to be some issue a party could form around, like nationalising energy supplier companies or rail companies, that could then form the kernel for more ambitious ideas like perhaps poor people are people

[Starver]

Looks like the PSNI[1] data pretty much definitely is in the hands of those it should not be. It sounded very much like those concerned were just claiming possession for the lulz(/"make your enemy nervous" sort of thing), though of course it would have always need to be assumed that they might. But now either:

• ...they did have it all along, or
• ...they didn't, but they finally got it from someone who'd grabbed it (from someone who'd grabbed it, and repeat as necessary) originally, or
• ...it isn't them, but someone ("...who grabbed it from...", * N) has a sick enough sense of humour to do this, which is practically the same as the above point/may also result in it.

Being of the Computer Security type person myself (though nowhere near the same field of corporate responsibility), I can imagine how easy this episode is to happen (by accident, I'm assuming[2]). At least could, without actual sanity checks during pre-release reviews, but I honestly can only guess what range of SOPs/P&Ps govern those involved and how they'd fail to catch this.


[1] I still keep thinking they mean NS&I, when it gets mentioned...
[2] Though no more useful an occasion for a (seperate?) deliberate exfiltration of data to be masked behind the public error(/'error').