Labour take both by-elections

[BertaBobAndMeToo]

Wow! Seismic results, even with turnout down, and this should school conservative HQ to the core.

anyone up and want to talk about it?

Yes, the latest date for a GE is 28 January 2025, i.e. 5 years since Parliament was first convened after the last GE (17 Dec) plus 25 working days for an election campaign.

It would have to be called in December 24, but yes in theory … 😱

Although the Tories desperately need their voters to turn out for them, and the known data tells us this involves a predominantly older population. Thus the Tories need to think about the weather and the daylight, as well as if they can risk pushing postal votes more.

Most political commentators are thinking October 24 latest, I think?

January would be a terrible time for a by-election. Imagine having election campaigning over Christmas. And January is a depressing time of year as it is - not great for an incumbent government.

I hope so too - agree there was a definite buzz around the country. Euro 96, Cool Britannia etc. I wasn't quite 18.
The night itself was amazing to watch too.

Concerned it's more like 92/93 - sleaze, economy struggling, labour looking like victors until polling day.

I reckon they’ll call it for Sept. They won’t want it to run as the same time as the US elections and they also won’t want to compete with Christmas and New Year blues. They’ll want to come off the back of the Summer. Although the parliamentary break might make it earlier. So we could see one in June.

I thought Sunak had done more than enough with the scrapping of the meat and two veg tax.

At least he can rest easy knowing that he knows what a woman is, that will win it for him.

I was up, but knackered and clearly fell asleep after my typo ridden post.

Labour didn’t gain many votes, but what they didn’t have was apathy or disgust, both of which cost the Tories, and which they will struggle to reverse.

You don’t need to be an MP to be PM but I think a Johnson return is vanishingly unlikely.

The by election results are amazing - I also remember the joy of 1997 very clearly. The world is a very different place now though.

@Ratsoffasinkingsauage I think it’ll be October so they can squeeze one more party conference in 😬

They won’t leave it to January - can you imaging being the Grinch who forced an election campaign on Christmas?

I’m feeling bloody elated this morning! So do both my DC - I think I brought them up well, ie to care about the less-fortunate.

They should do the decent thing and piss off now but rhein huge egos won't allow it. They havnt finished off ripping off the country for their personal gain, such as the land around the cancelled hs2. Labour will inherit shit much more than tories did in 2010.

He has no need to. He is making a kint doing all his chappy talks for bellends willing to pay to hear him speak.

Wow! There’s some crap on here.

May and Sunak have the country’s best interests at heart!😲Bollocks they do. We have no dentists, no doctors and shite education. I live in the north. There was an anouncement on our local news last night that the monumentally shite Trans Pennine Express is going to get even shiter! So we have no transport either.

Boris to return?! This is why we are in this shit because of him.

I don't think they'll try to get a new leader before the GE.

There is no reason to be rude because we have different opinions.

I don’t think the entire state of the country can be put on Sunak. We started the biggest act of self-sabotage with Brexit which was largely based on the lies of mass uncontrolled immigration. That wasn’t helped by Labour’s non-stance by Corbyn at the time. The following 10 years were always going to be challenging to recover from, even without Covid.

Sunak is one politician who frankly doesn’t need the money or connections post politics. I think he’s a grown up trying to fix the sins of Truss and Johnson. He hasn’t the dynamic personality to carry it off though.

But if the start of it was Brexit, why are EU countries in a bad state too?

Not January apart from Xmas they'd do even worse clinging on to the bitter end.
Re Khan being a liability, I don't know if you've seen or heard his opponent Sarah Hall. He may have a secret weapon.

I travel around the EU and I just don’t believe the rhetoric that the rest of the EU is screwed.
We were supposed to build up manufacturing but that’s so hard with the import/export challenges post Brexit. We were due to raise the NHS standard with the “spare money” yet many EU workers left to go back to their countries of origin. Our financial services were the heartbeat of the country and is now scattered towards New York and Asia, with Frankfurt and Dublin doing very well out of our decline.
Whoever comes in has their work cut out.

The last one was such a roaring success for the Conservatives satirists I can see why they would want another go.

I think we're long overdue another Labour government to remind ourselves just how shit they really are!

To be fair, the reason for shortage of doctors in particular goes way back, to long before Sunak or Theresa May.

For far too long we simply haven’t been training enough of them - or paying enough to those we do train, to stop them buggering off to Australia.

A decade in Tory:
Entirely unnecessary referendum
Bungled delivery of result
Self-inflicted downturn
Implosion and self loathing

(Let's hope) at least a decade out of power because of brexit while labour sorts things out

Of course! People will be begging for Liz Truss to come back with her excellent management of the economy.

Nadine Dorries' name must be mud at Tory HQ.

Good.