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Reposted by M.J. Ferguson

Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There’s a fine line between righteous anger over the war in Gaza and seeming obsessive/extreme. Big difference speaking to voters in Holborn and St Pancras compared with Gorton and Denton was how many felt the Greens had moved into the second category

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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Wider context to the Holborn result: this chart shows the proportion of Labour’s 2024 vote going to different parties. Post Gorton over 1 in 10 Labour 24 voters were going to the Greens - that number has more than halved as Labour’s retention improved, particularly on the left.

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Paula Surridge @psurridge.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Particularly when that honeymoon is being driven by Labour taking back people who might otherwise have voted for you.

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Agree. That sort of stuff would've been on their agenda soon anyway; conf motion to drop oppo to nuclear power could do with more awareness. Reassert where can meet public. Quietly working away during an inevitably fallow period for the party could be good long-term. Burnham honeymoon *will* end...

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Were Grns (& now-gone poll surge) overly reliant on flaky, nitpicky voters too willing to defect due to trivial policy point disagreements? Or might it be a case that Grns need to reorient towards domestic, 'kitchen table' issues, than act as place for protest vote over less tangible foreign policy?

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Could you argue Greens could row back from being as radical/brashly left-wing and still hold onto most of their current voters, while being more palatable to those who switched to them from Labour but have recently gone back? (Speaking as someone kinda left-wing, but has no plans to return to Lab).

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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Only thing to say on Labour - as John Curtice notes on BBC - 2024 wasn’t a great result in the seat historically and hitting it again maybe suggests pro-Palestine Muslim vote has still not come back to Lab in big numbers.

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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Green target voter is basically a normie lib or elderly nature minded voter. Since Gorton there’s been chat about replacing Labour or winning Reform voters(!) all while ZP seems to have been slowly radicalised by his own social media feed. Refocus and they can still get 15-20 MPs next election imo

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Question for Polanski now: does he fight Holborn & St Pancras again at the next GE, or decamp to Hackney, where many have assumed a possible Diane Abbott retirement would be fecund for him 'succeeding' her? The latter more auspicious for him, but there would be carpetbagging accusations afoot.

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The Holborn and St Pancras byelection shows that the Greens can still cause Labour some discomfort even though their national polling has fallen back lately - though one wonders whether voters will only entertain that in places where the vote on the right is weak.

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Jo Kibble (Political Animal) @politicanimal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Imagine not wanting to incorporate a council by-election count into your wedding reception. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before their first dance, the bride and groom will now announce the number of valid ballot papers issued.’

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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Democracy is good for business because political liberty goes hand and hand with economic liberty. Authoritarianism, no matter how business friendly it tries to market itself as, always has a pay to play dynamic. Authoritarians hate free markets because they reward ability rather than loyalty

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Ed BooOOooOOmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Your typical nativist is *just* smart enough to realize that the government is never going to let them fulfill their dream of being a slaveowner and the Gulf State model is their favorite among the alternatives they think they can actually get.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

If this silly argument that Labour will be taking an electoral risk if they hold Holbon & St Pancras were true, then the Conservatives would be taking a risk if they could defeat Nigel Farage in Clacton (!)

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Tyron @tyron.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Cope latest

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Leigh Jones @leighsus.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Just seen @pdkmitchell.bsky.social describe the statement "Zionism is racism" as being "maximally inflammatory while making minimum demands" which I think sums it up perfectly.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Years of working in left archives and engaging in left politics has made me wary when I hear or read "Zionist" - not because it is inherently offensive or abusive or antisemitic - but because it provides cover for a huge range of different arguments and attitudes. Political parties should know this!

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

What does it mean to be a member-led party when the Greens have 230,000 members but only 1835 voted on the Zionism Is Racism motion? Doesn't seem like you can claim the result as the iron-clad democratic will of the membership while dismissing the concerns of actual democratically elected MPs

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Their strategy as set out in Politico is not mad. Tack to the centre by trying to win back enough LD/Lab middle class switchers and then force Reform voters to back them as the ‘main’ right party. Might not work but seems legit.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Seems the Tories have finally looked and an electoral map

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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Grimly funny that GPEW managed about 6 months of serious improvement and then decided that was quite enough and it was time to step on every rake going, good work folks, there's only a climate crisis and rising fascism, nobody needed a successful party of climate action and social liberalism

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ceej @ceej.online · 04/10/2026

“how do we win back trump voters in 2026” we don’t. we create an environment where admitting to voting for trump is so socially embarrassing as to render them completely inert. you don’t “win back” trump voters. you demoralize them into staying home. you make it a dunce cap

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Me, every time I see one of these 4- or 5-party first past the post Canadian elections

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Katherine Alejandra Cross @quinnae.com · 05/10/2026

This is *the* main continuity between neo-fascism and the 20th Century variety. Erich Fromm argued exactly this in "Escape From Freedom," saying that modernity left many alienated and socially dislocated--and fascist strongmen promised to restore meaning and purpose to their lives.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The BBC switching its local resources from radio to the website has been disastrous for the business model of local newspapers, but you have to balance that against how good it has been for 'the BBC's opponents' and 'random companies who now get a PR hit on the biggest news website in the UK'.

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You either bow down to the assumption that voters’ preferences are fixed or at least exogenous. Or you decide that they’re malleable and endogenous - and so prepare to make a political argument. Better, perhaps, to risk dying on your feet than live on your knees.

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Hugh Brechin @hughrbrechin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Lib Dem polling, 2024-2026:

a much memed image of a guy calmly eating his dinner in a chippy while it all kicks off behind him

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Bob Melling @bobmelling.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If the UK broke up would all the people who are currently British but not English (in Braverman's concept) suddenly become English as it replaced Britishness as a state identity category rather than an ethnic category?

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Their British original Extraordinary suffered from this. An enthusiastic promo effort and recommission preceded its launch. Second series then released to zero fanfare. Fairly obvious the first series disappointed, but were lumbered with a recommission to carry out... which ended on a cliffhanger.

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Burnham govt wanting to 'fix basics' & restore functionality of the structures of the state so monstrously chipped away at under the Tories may find this a good opportunity to do it, while their most likely critics are focused on the 'Europe bait'. Not without its risks, but has to be tantalising.

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Decent points made on #Newsnight about how (process of) re-entering EU foments scenario of it dominating British politics, leaving little air for anything else, again. But... wouldn't any govt enjoy a monolith drawing the attention of critics, to quietly while away on other stuff on the downlow...?

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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This is your semi-regular reminder that pensioner poverty: a) is real b) is significantly less prevalent than working-age poverty and half the rate of child poverty, and c) is such that a pensioner is statistically more likely to live in a household worth over £1 million than to live in poverty

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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The bigger a group is, the harder it is to find common threads to hold them all together. Latinos are now 20% of the population, so you'd expect to see more political diversity within the group. There's structural reasons why the Latino vote is becoming more Republican, but Trump is blowing it.

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Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Lest we forget, this is politics in action: - the David Cameron-led Conservative govt had de facto halted onshore wind in 2015 (raised planning restrictions, cut subsidies) - in 2024 Labour under Starmer, and really the energy secretary Ed Miliband, removed the hurdles and lifted the ban

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The online far right conspiracy theorists’ obsession with the Fabians - stoked massively by GB News, Talk TV et al - is one of the weirdest, most disturbing things in British politics right now (and that’s saying something) Like a mini British QAnon Must be awful working for Fabians rn

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Kinda surprised Sky haven't taken it upon selves to do something like that. Haven't (yet) gone to the effort of appending "US" to the listings for that version, which returns on Sky1 tonight. Maybe distinguishing the UK version is enough & maybe not bothering with as so few watch US iteration here.

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Grace Robertson 🏳️‍⚧️ @graceonfootball.com · 27/09/2026

culture has just been reorganised around interest clusters rather than geography. i have more cultural touchstones with online friends on other continents than i do with people on my street. that would've been unthinkable decades ago.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 27/09/2026

#CurtisFest2026 #CurticeFest2026 (Bonus chart on the death of class as a predictor of voting, which is a *hugely* under-appreciated phenomenon)

Sorry am on mobile so can’t type out the full table but it’s a photo of a slide as described in the post.

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M.J. Ferguson @mattferg26.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Am I misreading this, or does that data say the Grns' vote share has barely increased on 2024 in Grn-facing Lab seats, despite large drop in Lab's vote share? If so, surprising; has Burnham near-wholly reversed any Starmer-caused Lab->Grn voter defection, or was there never much in the first place?

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Curtice identifies a key red flashing light in the MRPs - Labour are falling furthest in seats where Labour are first and con, ref or Nat are second. Labour therefore do a lot *worse* than uniform swing would predict (having done much better than uniform swing in 2024)

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Alan Trewartha @jauntyalan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

SNL UK being very educational. Just had to look up “dick me down”

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Far right Homeland Party has closed down its social media accounts on X and YouTube (though not yet Facebook) nor its main website (which links to the dead social media pages): last news post April 2026 homelandparty.org Searchlight report on its demise searchlightmagazine.com/2026/09/home...

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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I mean, we've apparently lifted the ban on right wing hooliganism so what's the point keeping the stable door bolted I guess

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 23/09/2026

The biggest challenge for the US political system is reforming itself so that it can work with regular alternation in party control without either party trying to murder the other party's voters with secret police outside the law or, more generally, ignoring our Constitution.

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Ernest Luckman @ernieluckman.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

There’s always this mistaken belief that the Hispanic vote will ever be as singularly directed as the black vote. That will never happen. You see wide variety of voting behaviors primarily influenced by country of origin and generation in the US.

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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This does, we should point out, apply to all nations. They're imagined communities. Some make more sense than others but none are inevitable. Wales. Scotland. England. France. Iraq. All social constructs. That doesnt, however, make them any less powerful as concepts or as political drivers.

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Euan Healey @euanhealey.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Not to be like "everything is evidence for why we need proper devolution" BUT I do think we need political structures which use the English flag constructively rather than the vacuum we have at present which allows extra governmental actors to claim the flag as theirs

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Toby Earle 🇺🇦 @tobyontv.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

these people ably demonstrate the journey from online brainrot to fascism

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James Bloodworth @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I suspect a society organised increasingly around optimisation gradually teaches people that public-mindedness is irrational. Behaving altruistically-or even just considerately-begins to feel like making yourself a mug.

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it's she ghoulcab @coolcab.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

to understand uk politics on anything but the most basic level you must internalize something that is never, ever engaged with or discussed but everyone with power is extremely aware of, and that's "nigel farage decided the last two elections"

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