elections and regrouping tories

'completely idle... pointless to complain...' - franz kafka, diaries, 28th september 1915. 

horsemouth spent yesterday evening listening to the webb dave show (most excellent). he will put up a link to it when it becomes available (until then here's this). 

'63 per cent of the commons obtained with only 34 per cent of the ballots—a record skew... there was no swing to labour. on the contrary, labour’s vote fell by half a million, from corbyn’s 10.3 million in 2019 to starmer’s 9.7 million. if labour’s percentage registered a tiny positive swing of 1.6 per cent, this was an effect of falling turnout...' - tom hazeldine, neo-labourism in the saddle, nlr issue 148 july-august 2024. 

meanwhile the tories are regrouping.

'I got elected 10 years ago and for most of that time I thought our politics broadly worked...' - robert jenrick. 

well they worked for you jokerman, the kept you elected and on £82k plus for a decade and beyond. 

horsemouth is anxious to add more red Xs to his tory leadership contest bingo card. their joint problem (as he sees it) is to keep the membership from being in a position to vote for kemi badenoch (she is way out in front with the members). keeping her off that final ballot has got to be their priority for any of the other candidates serious about winning (horsemouth can't see that the members can be denied a vote on the leader after the disaster that was the the sunak coronation). 

to achieve this requires co-operation between jokerman, cleverly and corporal clegg (an early test of their political skills). 

in a bit a journey up the forge by car in search of chicken feed. nathan arrives at 9am. horsemouth has his coffee.