Andrew Hickey: I will be celebrating the Tories losing spectacularly tonight, but won't be celebrating this Labour Party winning. I hope as many Lib Dem and Green MPs get returned as possible, to hold Starmer to account from his left and give a proper basis for a progressive opposition and real change.

I will be celebrating the Tories losing spectacularly tonight, but won't be celebrating this Labour Party winning. I hope as many Lib Dem and Green MPs get returned as possible, to hold Starmer to account from his left and give a proper basis for a progressive opposition and real change.

(And yes, there are serious problems with both those parties too, but lesser problems generally. My ranking generally goes Hypothetical Actual Good Party Lib Dem/Green Tie Hitting Myself in the Balls With a Hammer Labour Hitting Myself in the Balls With a Hammer *Repeatedly* Tories Reform)

Where do SNP and PC fall on that spectrum? Or just irrelevant because you're not in Scotland or Wales?

The latter. Not nationally irrelevant of course but I wouldn't presume to comment on internal Scottish/Welsh stuff, because I'm very aware of my ignorance there.

In 2017 and 2019, it would have been fascinating to see how many votes the SNP would have got if they had stood in England. Pro-EU, talking about the benefits of migration, prepared to raise taxes to improve public services, socially liberal, etc etc etc...

I've said this all along. If a party in England affiliated itself with the snp (a sort of english snp lile we have scottish labour).. ran with the same manifesto, of freedom for England, along with free uni tuition, scrapping of prescription charges etc etc.. they would become a serious contender

The SNP are three parties in a trenchcoat, and it all depends on which one's on top which way they go. Right now, "sort-of-OK-centrist" is on top, but it's holding hands with "conservative Christian right".

Some of the tartan Tories are still in the party, true.

I have a feeling if I were British I would be voting libdem every election and then quietly crying into my pint(s) at the pub.

This is the balanced thinking I came here hoping for. The list that followed I was entirely unprepared for and now have shortbread bobbing in my tea. Which is not a euphemism.

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