@samiamsam I didn't get to vote in this election! I'm in another country (Scotland).

@TheCybermatron The Reform high-water-mark in Scotland was about 24%, in line with John Rogers' Crazification Factor hypothesis about politics. Bear in mind the press are mostly foaming unionist shills, and polling shows another boring SNP majority is the likeliest outcome.

@fazalmajid I'm pretty sure the main party leaders exist in majestic isolation in a filter bubble created by their own support staff.

@jtb Naah, recent experience in Scotland shows that a new party on the rise generally comes with all-new leaders (unless they're Reform UK wearing the flayed Tory party's skin as a cloak) who remember how they got there, and what it was like before. It takes a generation for the memories to fade and institutional capture to set in. (Looking at the SNP here.)

@Photo55 Yes, exactly. He's got a troublesome history with a neo-nazi eugenicist "think tank": always looks to be about 3 seconds away from spitting out the 14 words and goose-stepping off the podium sieg heiling.

@diffrentcolours Not according to their candidate last night … (are you conflating council elections, by-elections, and/or general elections?)

@cstross progressive Wokes as opposed to Conservative wokes.

@cstross a conspiracy to vote against someone is, of course, just called a "majority"

@cstross Plumber?

@arafel @cstross Until now, I didn't know that Zack Polanski was either gay or Jewish. I take it that has been a major shouting point in attempts to upset people who care about such things.

It is disappointing that an allegedly rational person has a religion (Pastafarainism excepted), but we're eroding that, slowly.

@cstross

It does not really work like that when it comes to projecting a by-election result onto a General Election, of course.

Although it would be interesting to see how the world would react to the GP becoming a major national level force in the U.K. at a General Election, the more cautious prediction is that next time the CUP is definitely going to come 4th in terms of seats won. It came close to their not being the Opposition last time, & their prospects have not improved.

#UKPolitics

@cstross reform got about 13% of the total eligible voters, so suggests they struggle break out of “committed racists” core base who are about 8-10%[1]

It’s only media hype that they’ve got so far!

1: https://media.ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/UKICE-FOCALDATA-MINORITIES-REPORT-081024-FINAL.pdf

@cstross And Labour played this game of "Keeping Reform out of office is just so important and only we can do that. If you vote for the Greens, you'll get Reform." They publicly tried to get the Green candidate to drop out using this argument, while offering nothing to the Greens as a party in return if they did this. I think now that the Greens were able to win this and buy a sizeable margin over both credible challengers, this sort of argument will be even less effective in future contests.