Alun Ephraim

@alunephraim.bsky.social

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History PhD student, bookseller, artist and problematic crank.

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He is ringing around defeated MPs to commiserate them - a good contact who lost their seat found it very awkward, because clearly Sunak was more surprised by their defeat than they were. (They weren't *thrilled* but as they said, 'I'm not a fucking idiot, I had a lot of time to prepare for it'.)

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Alun Ephraim

Feeling good about my decision to spend a Monday morning a couple of weeks ago doorknocking in SW Norfolk.

You'll notice that the final map just makes so much more *sense* for all its wildness than pre-election projections. Often the way, and this is the almost mystically fascinating part of election results.

It's fairly obvious from the results that this latest Labour Party coalition is dominated by public sector employees of various grades and skilled workers. Which is interesting as guess which parts of the workforce still have large numbers of TU members. Time is a flat circle?

I wish to congratulate the people of South West Norfolk for taking the opportunity, when granted, to do the funniest thing ever.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The fact is... looking over these results... these mad results... well... do they not reflect more accurately British society as it actually *is* than recent elections? I suppose the lack of jeopardy encouraged that.

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Alun Ephraim

Sorry, I am increasingly convinced we are a soon to be cancelled TV show. “Oh, eventually Scottish Labour were rescued by, let’s say, Mo” level plotting.

Labour wins Na h-Eileanan an Iar?!

Con -40 in Cannock

My God the Telford result!

Operation Honey Badger continues

Yeah, it's fundamentally a thorough rejection of an incumbent government rather than an assertive endorsement of an alternative. But, well, hardly surprising, right?

This coverage is brain-dead and psephologically farcical.

Well, you do have to offer people something or they get cross.

Voted.

Congratulations of a sort to Lembit Öpik who is somehow now no longer the most embarrassing recent representative for Montgomery.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Perhaps the most influential (and certainly the most objectively successful) local government officer of the past fifty years.

Sir Howard Bernstein: Man who led regeneration of Manchester dieswww.bbc.co.uk Sir Howard started as a town hall pot washer and rose to become boss of Manchester City Council.

I won't predict impact (especially as measuring his party's support seems to be tricky anyway) but 'West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage tells BBC' is *not* a good headline.

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Alun Ephraim

Imagine opening this map for the first time.

And here's my 1st ed Lord of the Rings with their brand new dustjackets. What a set.

So, the big question of this election. Is the theme tune to the Conservative campaign 'The Laughing Policeman' or 'The Entrance of the Gladiators'?

I tend not to highlight individual polls so much, but a telephone poll by a pretty credible firm using a full ballot question that finds the incumbents losing half their vote from last time and down 21pts at the moment when postal votes are being sent out is worth noting.

Marc Bloch, 6th July 1886-16th June 1944

I would like to put it on the record, because I have seen something truly stupid elsewhere, that people in the building trades and similar industries have not drunk at work for a very, *very* long time. People drink *after* work, not during.

I've made this point before and I will do so again, but most voters in the UK receive their news via media that is subject to broadcasting/content restrictions during a GE campaign.

Bit of helpful advice from an utter loser who has been doing this for years: if something looks *very odd* in the internals of a published poll, then about 98% of the time this is an indicator that there is something wrong with the poll.

It is bleakly amusing that Gaullism's final death as a living political tradition of sorts appears to be occurring in the most farcically shabby manner imaginable literally a few days after the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of France.

Has anyone else been shocked at the lack of Conservative signs, even in constituencies won comfortably-to-by-miles last time and where they now face, at the very least, a stiff challenge?

It's fascinating to see quite how utterly unhinged, how completely unmoored from reality, a lot of election coverage from the Telegraph, Spectator etc. is by this point.

Something to remember when looking at the polls at present. No party or 'party' has won the popular vote by more than 20pts since 1931. Only once since then - in 1983 - has there been a lead of 15ps. Labour's lead in 1997 was 13pts.