This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[WD]

Rick Holden, the new party chair, has said the party will be fighting and capable of winning in every red wall seat they won in 2019.

Perhaps someone should ask him whether he intends to stand in one of these red wall seats himself.

Capable of getting 20-25% of the vote perhaps?

[WD]

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1733417742001156162?s=20

[WD]

Won't Clarke be out of a seat come next election? I don't see Cleveland being a Conservative hold.

Not an “almost certain” gain per se, but very hard to see his seat not being a Labour gain next year, yes

[WD]

Might be tight in Gainsborough, too

[WD]

This nowcast (https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast#google_vignette) has it with a projected Labour majority of a little over 1K. Take from that what you will

[WD]

Per Shapps this evening, they’re not even banning them, just instituting a policy discouraging them. Which ironically means that the Scottish Parliament, (which actually did ban rainbow lanyards as part of an culture war subplot a few months back) now has a harder line on pride flags than the Tories. Weird times we live in.

That aside, the truly frustrating thing our “Minister for Common Sense” did today was take a victory lap for reducing the number of international postgrad students coming here. That’s going to squeeze academic research and the entire postgrad sector, which is one of the few unscathed corners of our economy. And it’s not just that she doesn’t care, she’s *revelling* in it.

If ever we needed a Tatton 1997 redux, it’s now. 

What do Labour’s chances look like in Tatton?