Are YOU happy with the overall result & your [new] constituency MP ?

[hitmouse]

Mixed feelings nationally, mixed feelings locally.
Positives nationally: fuck the tories, decent showings by the Greens and pro-Palestine independents, negatives nationally: Starmer got in, will doubtless interpret his massive success/further shrinking of Labour's voter base as a vindication of all his worst instincts, and yeah Reform and that.
Locally: Afzal Khan got back in on a hugely reduced majority, he's barely over 50% now, Greens in second place on 23.5%, WPB in third place on 12.6%. Not a terrible result and Khan is at least pro-ceasefire, but could still be better if the Greens had actually won. I suppose in both cases it's pretty much the best result I could realistically hope for, but I'd still like to see, idk, Greens as the largest party and having to form a coalition with TUSC and Corbyn to take power or something.

 

[xenon]

Same Labour MP as we've had for years. Must admit I don't know, have not been arsed to check, their voting record. Sent them the odd email... Well not that odd, normal stuff, generic reply etc. I voted Green this time anyway.

 

[hitmouse]

Also, cos I wasn't really going looking for them or anything, it was only today that I realised the Lib Dems didn't even bother standing a candidate in Rusholme. Was anyone else cruelly denied a chance to vote Lib Dem or was that just me? Did Davey just spend the money marked "Rusholme deposit" on a trip to Alton Towers or something?

 

[Sue]

Also, cos I wasn't really going looking for them or anything, it was only today that I realised the Lib Dems didn't even bother standing a candidate in Rusholme. Was anyone else cruelly denied a chance to vote Lib Dem or was that just me? Did Davey just spend the money marked "Rusholme deposit" on a trip to Alton Towers or something?

I can tell you're secretly gutted.

 

[quiet guy]

Bolsover now back with a Labour MP, Natalie Fleet. Just hope that the party realises that they need to engage more with the electorate and not take for granted what they have otherwise there will be problems further down the line. Voter apathy in the East Mids, and the wider country, really needs to be looked at, so many people being asked on local tv news if they voted and answering "What's the point?"

 

[dessiato]

The number of Reform posters around here is troubling, the next constituency voted for Reform. This in an area where I've previously been subjected to racist abuse.

I'm wondering how safe I'm going to be now.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Very happy to see the scum Tories are out. Also happy that Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected.

Have my doubts about Labour, I'd prefer a left leaning party than the middling one we have, but willing to give them the chance. Worried about Reform and moving further to the right.

As for our local MP, I'm really happy, he's young, he's local so knows the area, he was educated in a local comprehensive (which my son now goes to) so I'm hopeful he'll be a good constituency MP even though he's LibDem so not my choice of party.

 

[Silas Loom]

Also, cos I wasn't really going looking for them or anything, it was only today that I realised the Lib Dems didn't even bother standing a candidate in Rusholme. Was anyone else cruelly denied a chance to vote Lib Dem or was that just me? Did Davey just spend the money marked "Rusholme deposit" on a trip to Alton Towers or something?

A Lib Dem spokesperson said: "The Liberal Democrats are committed to standing in every seat in the country. In Manchester Rusholme there was an administrative error which has led to us not contesting it.

This part of Manchester is the only place in Britain with no Lib Dem candidate

The Lib Dems have 630 general election candidates

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

That isn’t a wholly satisfactory explanation and leaves room for your embezzlement theory to be proved right.

 

[gentlegreen]

.

 

[Pickman's model]

No

 

[steeplejack]

A weird election really. The Tory party were done long ago but their corpse took an awful long time to decompose.

I share people’s worries about Reform UK & Farage; the private company masquerading as a movement needs to be confronted head on & smashed. Unfortunately Labour will have a big say in how Reform are confronted and they don’t seem to have any answers. Clear that the allegations of pro-Putin views & outing the golf club fascists who were standing for them had little impact.

It’s an odd result as well: an anti -Tory landslide rather than a pro-Labour one IMO.

In Scotland the SNP were demolished & deservedly so. The party’s claims to be the only ones ‘standing up for Scotland’ in Westminster were seen by a sophisticated electorate to be hollow: despite a big parliamentary grouping in the last 2-3 parliaments Brexit happened and the Nationalists could do nothing as a Tory government simply decided to ignore them, because it didn’t have to talk to them.

In my constituency I didn’t vote. But the sitting MP leads the SNP in Westminster & is well respected, so got back in easily enough. However he will have to reflect that couthy one liners on Question Time & at PMQs are of little value if people have barely enough to eat & can’t get a GP appointment.

It was also funny to see the ludicrous fat linesman Douglas Ross evicted in Aberdeenshire East or whatever it’s called now- one of the Tories’ biggest self inflicted wounds, as I am sure the previous incumbent, shabbily de-selected by Ross to his own benefit, would have got back in.

Independence (if anyone still doubted) is dead now as an issue for many Scots voters. The moment passed. How Scottish politics re-aligns in the next few years in response to that reality will be fascinating.

The Labour vote is still very friable IMO but the SNP will really have to re-invent themselves, with purpose, if they mean to continue as having any kind of relevance after 2026.

 

[redsquirrel]

How do you think that re-invention will go steeplejack?
From the bits and pieces I've read Kate Forbes still seems to have her eye on the leadership with a move to the right

 

[hitmouse]

A Lib Dem spokesperson said: "The Liberal Democrats are committed to standing in every seat in the country. In Manchester Rusholme there was an administrative error which has led to us not contesting it.

This part of Manchester is the only place in Britain with no Lib Dem candidate

The Lib Dems have 630 general election candidates

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

That isn’t a wholly satisfactory explanation and leaves room for your embezzlement theory to be proved right.

Nice to know there's no tories in Rotherham as well, bit of an irritating clickbait headline though.

 

[steeplejack]

How do you think that re-invention will go steeplejack?
From the bits and pieces I've read Kate Forbes still seems to have her eye on the leadership with a move to the right

I’m sure she does. Swinney is scheduled to be leader only until the next Holyrood election in 2026 so there will be jockeying for position from next year on.

A lot will also depend on how allegations of financial corruption against Peter Murrell play out.

I think the SNP still has a narrow path to recovery as Labour are already likely to be unpopular by then. I don’t see a tack to the right and greater social conservatism as helping them along that path.

 

[geminisnake]

Not in the slightest happy with the new boundaries, but very glad it totally failed for 'them'. A Labour hold was predicted which is a bit weird seeing as the SNP have held all 3 different seats the new boundaries merged since 2015, beyond disgusted at the number of seats that went back to Labour, and the number of votes that Reform got throughout Scotland. Hoping SLab totally destroy themselves again and Holyrood will show a very different picture next year. Waiting to see if the SNP guy is any good, didn't rate Doogan tbh but he's not my MP anymore.

 

[geminisnake]

How do you think that re-invention will go steeplejack?
From the bits and pieces I've read Kate Forbes still seems to have her eye on the leadership with a move to the right

A move to the right will kill them stone dead but that might be a good thing, we need new parties.

 

[frogwoman]

A move to the right will kill them stone dead but that might be a good thing, we need new parties.

A lot of the Scottish lefties I know are worried about the new government, how do you see things?

 

[danny la rouge]

How do you think that re-invention will go steeplejack?
From the bits and pieces I've read Kate Forbes still seems to have her eye on the leadership with a move to the right

If that happens they condemn themselves to contesting the 5 rural Tory seats. I really don’t see them being that stupid. But then they turned out to be far less competent than I’d given them credit for, so who knows?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

A move to the right for the SNP (which I'm not sure will happen) will mean more votes to the Greens.

Personally I'm more a Green but SNP's stance is "good enough" on a lot of things that I vote for them as more likely to beat the Tories/Labour - or so I thought!

 

[Bingoman]

No Stephen Barclay got re elected

 

[rubbershoes]

Part of my constituency has been tory since 1835.

No longer

 

[sim667]

No, I got another fucking Tory

 

[JimW]

Kicking off in Stroud already: New MP's constituency office vandalised | Stroud Times

 

[BusLanes]

My borough and constituency are both one party Labour states so nothing changed. My MP is fine? Didn't vote for her but don't object to her.

The over all result is very funny. 4 Greens, 72 Lib Dems, half of Lambeth Council's Labour contingent past or present seemingly now a MP.

 

[bellaozzydog]

Tories totally wiped out in Cornwall. Usual caveats about the replacements but it's about the best I could expect and that's good enough for me right now.

This. Gutted all the efforts of 2019 didn’t get a great candidate in, new MP is a bit of a cooky cutter big brain oxbridge blow in (despite apparently being from the area)

Yet to be convince but I almost wept with joy when I realised I wouldn’t have to see the Tory weevils weekly full page propaganda columns in the the local rag

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

The problem isn't really fickle electorates is it, it's that as of now that electorate collectively doesn't particularly want Starmer in government. They could keep every single vote they got yesterday and still easily get a beating if circumstances don't fall for them to the same degree. So they do have to do a lot of work yes but not because of fickleness or lack of patience.

Agreed. I think many voted to get the Tories out rather than to vote Starmer in. So how things pan out in the next election now that the Tories are out, so people don't have to hold their noses and vote Labour... will a future Conservative leader prove more palatable, especially if Starmer continues his Tory-lite trajectory, maybe next time people will vote for actual Tories? And maybe next time, more disaffected impoverished people for whom Labour haven't delivered might vote Reform next time round?

Starmer seems to have (mis)calculated that the challenge facing him was the Tories to the right of him, so he wanted to move further to the right to try to capture those 'centre-right to relatively moderate right' votes, hence him offering a Tory-lite option.

Starmer seemingly failed to have accounted for being flanked from the other side by the far-right, who are attacking him by picking off the voters he'd taken for granted, because he assumed those further to the left of him and where his party now stands would have no where else to go politically, but Reform is offering them an alternative.

Because although it's often thought of as a political spectrum with polar opposites, it's more like a circle where the far-far-left and far-right start to blur a bit.

And there's a real danger from the far-right, especially if Starmer continues to be complacent, if he still focuses on delivering for big businesses and the middle and upper classes, taking for granted the votes of the working classes, ethnic minorities, benefits claimants, etc. Because they will get pissed off if they don't become better off, and they will switch their votes to the likes of Reform, who will win more seats if Labour aren't more careful.

 

[kalidarkone]

I'm happy I got to vote for who I really wanted to vote for and did not have to vote tactically.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

There's no change here in Hammersmith & Chiswick (as it's now called). Andy Slaughter is good on Palestine, but, in the past, he's supported Yvette Cooper as a leadership candidate and was partly behind Owen Smith's challenge to Corbyn. He also participated in the so-called 'Chicken Coup'. I voted Green, because I couldn't bring myself to vote for Labour after being told by Starmer and his goons that they neither wanted nor needed my vote. Furthermore, there's a hierarchy of racism in the party that I couldn't reconcile. Fuck the Labour Party.

Yes, agreed. The Labour Party's appalling treatment of Diane Abbott and others, such as Jackie Walker, plus the barrister Martin Forde KC who authored the Forde Report on the hierarchy of racism in the Labour Party has been seen and noted.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Also, cos I wasn't really going looking for them or anything, it was only today that I realised the Lib Dems didn't even bother standing a candidate in Rusholme. Was anyone else cruelly denied a chance to vote Lib Dem or was that just me? Did Davey just spend the money marked "Rusholme deposit" on a trip to Alton Towers or something?

I was in Manchester Central but am now in Manchester Rusholme following boundary changes.

A friend said they understood the LibDem messed up their nomination papers, so wasn't allowed to stand.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I'm in Manchester Rusholme (formerly bits of Manchester Central, my old constituency, and Gorton). Afzal Khan was the incumbent Labour MP in Gorton, now elected for Manchester Rusholme.

There wasn't a LibDem candidate due to an administrative error.

The Greens did well, came second. Although the LibDems not having a candidate on the ballot would've helped on that score, but there's other reasons they did well.

A bit of context/backstory:

Last time round, Afzal Khan was elected MP for Manchester Gorton with 77.6% of the vote, whereas as newly elected MP for Manchester Rusholme he only managed 51.9% of the vote, so lost around a third of his voters.

Last time round, Lucy Powell was elected MP for Manchester Central with 70.4% of the vote, but only managed 50.6% of the vote with the newly rejigged boundaries.

Green vote

The bits of Manchester Central that have now been absorbed into Manchester Rusholme include Hulme, which currently has a Green councillor, Ekua Bayunu (elected Labour but defected to the Greens amid claims she felt bullied and harassed within the party, and she also placed second to Lucy Powell MP in this general election). Years ago, Hulme elected the city's first Green councillor. There was also a really popular Green leader who was their mayoral candidate, Deyike Nzeribe, but he sadly died unexpectedly. Since then the Greens seemed to hit a bit of a lull, but in more recent years focussed on wards in the south of the city, gained a couple of councillors in Woodhouse Park, plus Ekua with her defection.

So it's not that surprising that the Greens showed well.

LibDems

LibDems didn't have a candidate on the ballot but they tend not to do so well, as most of the student vote seems to go Labour and there are lots of students/young people in Manchester. They did have a LibDem councillor turned MP in another Manchester constituency, but he lost his parliamentary seat after the student tuition fees fiasco, although got re-elected to the council.

Muslim and/or anti-war vote

Not sure what the statistics are, but there's a substantial Muslim population in these parts of Manchester.

Although Afzal Khan stood down from a shadow ministerial position in order to vote for a ceasefire in Gaza, a principled stance which probably helped him retain a lot of votes, he still probably paid the price for Starmer's support for Israeli war crimes - when Starmer said Israel has the right to cut off power and water to Gaza, which as a human rights barrister he would/should have know is collective punishment of a civilian population and therefore illegal under international law - and it's not just the Muslim voters, there's a lot of anti-war protesters, human rights activities, support for Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, there are Manchester Jewish people attending protests for a ceasefire in Gaza, etc. So Starmer lost Labour a lot of support from people who don't want a Labour government to be complicit in Israeli war crimes or just want him to call unequivocally for a ceasefire.

(A Starmer-led Labour government recognising the state of Palestine would be good, too, but I'm not holding my breath.)

Turnout
Turnout for Afzal Khan fell from 58% in Manchester Gorton in 2019 to 40% in Manchester Rusholme in 2024.

Turnout in Manchester Central fell from 56 to 46% - although the constituency had the lowest turnout in the country in 2012, only 18%

So it could be that the relatively high upswing in votes for eg Greens this time round could be countered by higher turnout and more votes for Labour next time round, if many of the voters who stayed away this time were previously Labour voters who couldn't stomach voting for a Starmer-led Labour Party candidate.

Overall, I'm happy that my new MP happens to be one of the relatively principled Labour MPs. It could be worse.

Overall, I'm happy that the Conservatives were kicked out but not happy that it's been replaced by a Starmer-led government, because I think he's an unprincipled charlatan.