Donations very much appreciated! :-)

Also listing on the Century Club website too where you can also buy tickets, if that's more your bag: centuryclub.co.uk/arts-culture/

Tickets are £60 for a table of 6, or £15 each. Much fabulousness guaranteed. Open to all, despite being in a private members club up town coz we be fancy! 😀 www.designmynight.com/london/whats...

If the progressive vote had distributed as efficiently as 2024 there'd have been no problem, but Labour is haemorrhaging its progressive base. Ergo, I would conclude that your analysis here, and that of Blue Labour, is taking all the wrong lessons from the results.

The progressive parties were only 4 points down on combined 2024 performance, but there is very little evidence that the actual voters went right. It seems that the move from Labour to the LDs/Greens and those staying at home was actually the critical factor.

What Labour did right in 2024, they did wrong in 2025 by chasing the wrong voters. There are more than enough progressive voters in the UK to win elections in an FPTP system. Locals: Labour+Lib Dems+Greens = 48% of the vote share, Reform+Tories = 45%.

I don't buy the conclusion that "four times as many seats went to Reform as other parties combined, [ergo] Starmer is right about immigration." The seats may have gone to Reform, but that doesn't mean Labour voters have. It just means that if Labour voters stay home/vote Green/LD, Reform benefit.

Welcome! I checked in a couple of days ago, and it's pretty nice! No one's pissed on the furniture yet! 😀

A friend got a brick through her window for having a pride flag last week. I have other friends now at risk from social erasure. Accepting the result is perfectly reasonable, but I would respectfully suggest it's easier to seek unity if you are not the person they are proposing to unite against.

It's stuff like this trans people really fear. The pursuance of social erasure, making engagement in public life impossible. They always frame it as a 'safety' issue, but neglect to mention that trans women are 4x more likely to be victims of sexual assault and violent assault than cis women.

...whilst apparently *not* caring about the stuff people think they *should* care about. In practice, we didn't hear a single Dem make the campaign about trans folk. But they didn't have an effective argument on economics, which meant they were open to accusations of being obsessed with other stuff.

The brass neck of the far right still claiming they have any interest in free speech... They only care about protecting their own speech. Musk has blocked certain terms he finds 'woke' and we've seen them try to shut down the so-called 'hate marches'. Free speech = speech that supports their agenda.

People don't care *that* much about progressive social policies as long as they don't think they're getting poorer. The power of the attack ads was suggesting that Dems cared more about these issues than they do about the cost of living. Those punches land against a weak economic argument.

I disagree. I don't think that was what led to the Democrats losing. Failing to adequately make the case for the economy performing well and how that translates to wage packets, and the adverse effects of the Ukraine war/Covid on inflation. That's what loses elections, not progressive social nudges.

And yet the Coming Of Age Comedy is one of the finest genres. COA Drama = motorbikes, wistfulness, middle class lunches outdoors, soundtrack to supply a year's worth of John Lewis ads. COA Comedies, however, can deliver 'the feels' AND the laughs: Eighth Grade, Ladybird, Book Smart, Submarine.. ❤️

Spot on. The whole point of being a 'progressive' is to push the conversation on. Nudge the debate forward. We're meant to be the ones who take on the difficult arguments and hopefully/eventually win them. Conservatives, by name and nature, are the ones who settle back onto pre-existing attitudes.

Was about to post something similar Stevie... it was -2 when I did the school run this morning, and not much better now. We are now only 2 Yorkshire folk away from being able to recreate a fairly famous sketch about how much harder we have it up here! 7 degrees? SEVEN DEGREES?! Luxury!