Alastair Meeks

@alastairmeeks.bsky.social

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Lawyer, writer, Zedra

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This speaks very well of him. www.theguardian.com/politics/art...

Do I take it that reports of Emmanuel Macron’s death have been exaggerated?

Sunday gym selfie

There are now, I think, just four "landlocked" Conservative seats: Bridlington & The Wolds; Gosport; New Forest West; and Salisbury. Every other Conservative seat has a seat of another party adjacent to it.

At the end of last month, the Spectator helpfully compiled a list of the controversial Reform candidates. How did they do? www.spectator.co.uk/article/full...

Full list: every controversial Reform candidatewww.spectator.co.uk After storming out of the blocks at the beginning of this campaign, polls suggest that Reform’s support has now tailed off slightly in the past week. So what’s the reason for this? Nigel Farage himsel...

Anyone considering starting betting on next Conservative leader can usefully think about laying favourites. This looks like being a fairly lengthy race and my guess is that some who will be serious contenders aren't on anyone's radar yet.

As for where the Conservatives should head to now, they first need to show the public that they are ready to change so that the public will in turn considering listening to them. They should think carefully about how they show that. It's extremely possible to make things worse rather than better.

Bye then. www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/mo...

‘We’re moving 10,000 miles away to escape Labour’www.telegraph.co.uk With Starmer in power, retirees fear a tax trap that will eat into their pensions

This, from Robert Jenrick, is revealing. He evidently hasn't begun to realise the degree to which his and his fellow Conservatives' opinions just don't matter any more. www.thetimes.com/article/8659...

Robert Jenrick: We lost because we got Brexit done but nothing elsewww.thetimes.com The Conservative MP says his party’s failure on migration drove millions to Reform — but that’s not the whole story

On balance I prefer the politics Monday morning quarterbacking to the football Monday morning quarterbacking.

I'm going to toot my own trumpet. I wrote in March about the range of unsurprising results then (and this result fell squarely within that). alastair-meeks.medium.com/the-death-cl...

Labour now have the same decision to make that the Conservatives had in 2019. Do they address the concerns of their new coalition or do they seek to bend their new coalition to their own concerns? The fate of the Conservatives this time should give them a clear steer to the right answer.

Reform were kept to single digits in Jeremy Hunt’s constituency, lower than in any adjacent constituency. This probably made the difference in his result. Given Jeremy Hunt isn’t exactly a darling of the right, if I were a Conservative I’d be absorbed right now in how he did that.

The Greens and the various left-of-Labour grouplets have a similar relationship with Labour as the Zetetic Elench did with The Culture. Labour's majority may well be built on far firmer foundations than is being widely assumed. There's a reservoir of voters who might be available to be drawn on.

Quite a list. Some of these are meaningful too. It’s easy to see how the Greens could build a stronghold in Bristol. No rural seats: the battleground will be with Labour next time.

And then there were five. Reform take South Basildon & East Thurrock. An enterprising bookie might offer odds on how many of these five will still be in Parliament taking the Reform whip in a year's time.

Strange how the Conservatives have yet to notice how royally they’ve been screwed over by the Lib Dems’ and Labour’s silent cooperation. The Greens benefited from it in the countryside too. It’s likely that cooperation will continue and develop by default next time too. Why wouldn’t it?

You could walk from Lowestoft to St David's without touching Conservative-held land.

I did say repeatedly that beyond "big Labour lead" I was suspicious about the reliability of polling. Labour underperformed the least favourable poll for it and the Conservatives overperformed. Reform had been overstated in a lot of polls. The pollsters need to have quite an inquest.

Labour won Poole! Just the 19% swing.

Liz Truss refusing to turn up for her own declaration because she's lost is the cherry on the cake.

Labour gain Hitchin. Hertfordshire was always going to be awful for the Conservatives.

Robert Peston reporting that Labour have "squeaked victory" over Liz Truss. Still unconfirmed.

Therese Coffey losing to the Greens came out of nowhere.

I did say Bury St Edmunds was very marginal.

The Lib Dems are hugely overperforming. I hadn't expected that on this scale.

Not sure that having IDS as a major voice in a massively shrunken Conservative party is an L for Sir Keir Starmer.

Every now and then the good guy wins. Fantastic to see Paul Waugh in Parliament.

The TV coverage is a disgrace. Why all the focus on a sideshow? The big story is Labour's huge win.

It seems that the exit poll, like many polls, has been captured by the over-engaged.