Sometimes they do, but I don't think he's planning on starting a civil war.

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unzoomed.com

📈 Chartle for 25 Oct 2025: Average years of schooling

Failed to guess this time
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Play at chartle.cc

#Polldle #521 4/6
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polldle.uk

This is terrible news for Wiganers voting during a postal strike and snow.

www.leighjournal.co.uk/news/2319548...

With a national vote share of 12% and winning 56 seats with 20,000+ votes each, some level of non-presence isn't surprising, but that's still a very broad bottom, including seats like Stalybridge and Hyde where non-Tory / Lab has fragmented enough for LDs to have come seventh rather than third.

In 1992, LDs got fewer than 2000 votes in 12 seats, and fewer than 4000 in 87. In 2024, there were 160 English seats, 28 Scottish seats and 18 Welsh seats below the first line; almost one in three seats with very low vote shares.

It's a similar level to what Labour got in Chesham and Amersham, where LDs were the clear anti-Tory choice, but the Conservatives got 17% in 2021 in Caerphilly; Reform shouldn't, in normal times, have usurped them so easily and utterly.

For example there's Sheffield offering Luxembourgish, which is good, and I think backed by the 🇱🇺 govt as the only one in the world outside 🇱🇺 (slightly surprised that, from a quick search, that isn't possible in Brussels or Paris) but not Hindi.

I think if you don't count Farage for not having continuously been a party leader, or with MPs for most of the time, Naomi Long's the longest-serving party leader left, and that's still since four months after the Brexit referendum.

I think further back there were MPs saying they'd have voted for Jenkins in the leadership election if he'd have said hello to them once.

Also ignoring the fact that it got less than a hundredth of a percent of votes last July.

What's your view on Scots joining Volt or other pan-national parties (or, I suppose, what would your view be without the SNP)?

Being proposed as one of a series of increasingly outlandish government of national unity heads? Double-hatting as mayor of London whilst an MP?

(For Westminster by-elections)

The three lowest Westminster by-election vote shares for Labour were 1.6-2% in Chesham and Amersham, Winchester and Newbury; all clear Con v LD contests. I don't know if they've ever got this low when they've been one of the two main candidates, let alone incumbent.

There's barely any precedent for such a large vote share fall either, from 46% to 11%; excluding Rochdale as Labour suspended their candidate, the only cases of larger incumbent vote share falls are Glasgow Camlachie 1948 (Independent Labour on deathbed), Wellingborough 2024 and Bermondsey 1983.

I think the new system discourages voting for parties unlikely to get at least 16% in that constituency, so no to the last bit.

The bit which I find much stranger is how Germany's Sunday timetables differ much less from other days than in the UK (e.g. 6 Mannheim – Frankfurt services leaving before 07:00 vs no Newcastle – Edinburgh ones until 08:45) when shops are closed on Sundays in 🇩🇪 but not in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (open 6 hours in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿).

Not having to drive on those days would be convenient if enough willing staff to run services could be found, but I understand why they're not.

Outside engineering work it's generally only two days with no service (Christmas and Boxing Day), plus earlier last services on 24th (and I think 31st, especially outside London) December. (I think Scotland has more Boxing Day and no New Year's Day services.)

Reform having shadow cabinet elections would probably (hopefully) harm them electorally (at least, to those paying attention), so they should introduce them.

LD councils leading to LD MPs as well as being a good end in their own right (well, in being well-run councils) is another strategy, but also limiting as I don't think there's tonnes of non-LD seats with LD councils left, especially winnable ones with the current strategy; SW Herts, but not Hull.

I think a hope beyond tactical support is popular candidates, due to cases like Farron seeming to have far larger personal votes than psephologists think they should have, but that might not always be enough, especially when incumbents retire.

Which is a problem for Senedd elections, even if that tactic's beneficial with limits for Westminster.

Forced to choose between global Britain and Trumpian tariffs, which side would the Conservative Party's resident Thatcher whisperers fall upon?