I think that it’s not whether Starmer wants to rejoin or not, it’s more that it’s reflective of political reality. Britain is now seen by the EU as an unreliable partner, and to repair that reputation will easily take a couple of decades. A start-stop attempt to rejoin, where Labour initiatives are reversed at the next change of government, would be as damaging as Brexit has been. There needs to be a recognition from at least the two largest parties that rejoining the EU is in Britain’s interest. We’re nowhere near that point, despite the fact that Brexit is now recognised as a howling teratoma by at least a small majority of British people.

2: As Starmer and many others predicted, the end result was much tighter than the polls predicted. Lots of shy Tories out there, and a smaller number of people switching from Labour to Green as a protest (as we’d seen in our local council elections).

The fun part is that, whatever happens in Romania, once that’s over, he’s going to be sent back here to face more pending charges.

And it didn’t escape my notice that Farage was name-checking Tate during the campaign. It’ll be nice to see both of them vanish from public view.

ABCDEF: Anyone Besides Conservatives, but Don’t Ever Farage.

The less intuitive the system is, the less empowered the voters feel, and the more the system will be gamed. And all voting systems can be gamed.

Of course tactical voting patterns would change under a different electoral system, so don’t treat this as exact.

If Putin falls, Farage will disappear like a fart in the wind.

Not for the British people, no it isn’t.

They had to drag her out of the toilets to even get her on the podium.

It’s even more mechanistic. The global far right gets funding from the fossil-fuel industry and petrostates. It’s ther way of buying time while they burn down civilisation.

It was a stunt, not a policy.

Reform is the 4th-largest party in Parliament. If the UK had a law requiring mouthpieces of foreign powers to register, that would affect Reform, which repeats Russian talking points verbatim. Better, such mouthpieces should be banned from office.

That should apply to those who repeat verbatim the positions of the Israeli governing party as well.

The much less bad guys won. They still have some unacceptable policies, for example on trans rights and Palestine.

Sydney has 6 million people compared to Auckland 1.2., Melbourne 5 with similar land area. If you look at % then yes, look at people per sqkm we are no where close.

So you don’t need as many buses to achieve the same coverage. Public transport infrastructure costs are not fixed for a certain land area, they are also proportional to potential ridership.

Yeah, you can’t use austerity as evidence of economic problems when austerity is NP policy. Self-fulfilling prophesy.

And the only real reason for austerity is to make the rich richer and drive inequality even higher.

Our country is less than 200 years old

Presence of Europeans in your country is less than 200 years old.

Almost as if certain governments and malefactors of great wealth were coordinating in promoting it.

That’s not the only way it might go.

A surprising degree of self-awareness from the slimy toad.

Let’s go, tactical voting! ABCDEF: Anybody But the Conservatives, but Don’t Ever Farage.