This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[Estrella]

One other interesting tid-bit on the electoral front - a couple of journalists have poked around the news that marginal seat MPs are increasingly looking towards safe seats, and it appears that there's been a formal process set up for those who are looking to participate in the "chicken run". Initially, this seems to have been set up by CCHQ to assist MPs who have been "displaced" by boundary reviews, but there's a sense that some MPs are exploiting the system in an attempt to survive.

We already knew Nicola Richardson (West Bromwich East) and Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) were looking to take that route, but Keiran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) sounds like he'll flee to Chester South and Eddisbury. Scott Benton (Blackpool South) is being very cagey about whether he'll stay in Blackpool or try elsewhere (*insert joke about what a great loss to politics Benton will be here*). And Eddie Hughes looks likely to leave Walsall to try for Chris Pincher's seat of Tamworth - assuming there isn't a by-election in the next 18 months...

Some of those seats are quite marginal, but only Eddie Hughes can really claim to have been "displaced" by the boundary review.

The nomination in Sajid Javid's safe Bromsgrove seat seems like it'll be a brawl between several incumbents. And a three-way fight for a safe Hampshire seat between Suella Braverman, Paul Holmes and Flick Drummond seems inevitable.

I think there are two safe Hampshire seats between those three.  The obvious thing to do would be for Holmes to take the revised Eastleigh, Braverman to take Hamble Valley and Drummond to take Fareham & Waterlooville.  But Eastleigh will be a Lib Dem target again and Holmes apparently wants Hamble Valley, and the view seems to be that he's likely to get it, leaving the other two fighting over Fareham & Waterlooville.

Fareham & Waterlooville would be a peak Canadian riding name if you cut out the “&” and made it Fareham-Waterlooville.

Fareham—Waterlooville—Solent to South Downs Country.

Saint-Hamme-lès-Farré—Sainte-Ville-sur-l'Ouatèrre-de-Lou, if you're in Quebec.

[Estrella]

I’m pretty sure if a newly elected Christian leader of SNP had started his career with inviting his extended family into the official residence the first evening in to for a joint prayer, there would have been some reactions.

The difference there was that unlike the Christian, the Muslim didn’t come from a fundamentalist sect and didn’t spend half the campaign talking about how he wants to impose his religious values on the country.

[Estrella]

I wonder if the right’s plan is to whip up opposition to Sunak through December, coup him first thing in January and call a snap election in May. Utterly delusional and impossible outside Braverman fantasyland — not that it would keep them from trying.