INDEX	July 5, 2024
Labour gets less votes than JC's worst result-- it's a triumph!
What a strange election! The big news was that the turnout was the lowest since 1945. Labour got 33.8% of the votes, about the same as in 2019 (32.1%), the so called worst election result in history (for Labour). When Starmer does it, it's a triumph. When Corbyn does it, it's a disaster. It's the system. What is clear is that the long term trend for Labour is downwards since in 2017 Jeremy Corbyn's Labour got 40% of the vote on a higher turnout. 2017 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 12,877,918 2019 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 10,269,051 2024 (Keir Starmer) — 9,686,329 So what happened was weird but all too predictable. Voters turned away in disgust from the incumbents (in Wales where Labour runs the devolved assembly Labour's vote was down). In England most former Tory voters stayed at home. They didn't bother to vote at all. Starmer's cosying up to the Murduck press, his friendliness with the establishment, the signals he sent to big business suggesting they will be ok with a Starmer Labour government, achieved precisely nothing. Or more accurately, it achieved less than nothing. Will the Tories now return to internecine warfare? You know they will. They were rehearsing during the tail end of the last government. Will Starmer pull off a triumph and make Britain great again? We will see, if we live long enough.
INDEX Jonathan Brind	July 5, 2024