setting aside *whatever* political bent these are coming from, in what fucking world does “sort-of landslide” explain what is happening for the reader? if you are not writing to be clearly understood, then what in the fuck are you doing?
I mean, they’re trying to undermine left-wing power, but understand that they’re going too far that no one will listen if they don’t call it a landslide.
So you get this muddled compromise, because undermining left-wing power is more important to them than clarity
Basically Labour didn't win, the Conservatives lost. Labour's vote totals only increased about about 1.7%. The Tories dropped 20%, of which probably 3/4 of that went to Reform UK, who are even more reactionary and racist than the Tories are. Whichever of those 2 parties wins the power struggle
over the voters on the right will probably take 100+ seats back in the next general election based on combined numbers. Labour has a huge opportunity because they more or less CAN'T be forced out for 7 years, but they have to do something with it to grab more of the electorate than they have now.
I see loads of papers calling this a victory for the left when in fact all that happened is the RW vote was split and in a first past the post system that rewards a party that stays together and keeps its vote total intact. The whole thing is really worrying IMO
In this case, tbh, Starmer didn't actually do that great in terms of vote share (the lowest in UK history for a majority govt aiui), or absolute number of votes, or actually acting like he won a landslide rather than offering empty promises because he's upset at losing some key players.
(he lost one of his Shadow Cabinet to the Greens (it was an incredibly telegraphed target seat), and another to an independent (the campaign kept the local campaigners but, like, I tested postcodes next door to it on the Labour volunteering site, and they were sent further afield))
The story of the election is the Tories imploding not "well akkkually Labours massive majority doesn't really count and Biden still sucks" but its the NYT so not sure what you expect. Other publications explain this way better.
"Sort-of landslide" because the actual vote share wasn't much more than in 2019 - but under first-past-the-post rules and the way party votes were spread out, that's a landslide of seats anyway.
In practical terms, LABOUR WINS BIG, BABY
