And while the Greens are doing what they do best (opposing green development), the Labour government has already lifted the Tory ban on onshore windfarms.

This is odd, because Labour are the same as the Tories, as we all know, and the Greens are a radical new force. But in this case, Labour are doing the direct opposite of the Tories, while the Greens are doing the same things the Tories did! Most curious.

EDIT: Here's the official government statement confirming this.

EDIT 2: And this isn't all! Rachel Reeves is also planning to do more to make onshore wind simpler to build.

The Greens promised to push Labour to be more radical but are instead acting how they always have: pro nimby, anti-environment.

I didn't vote Green, obviously. If I had, I imagine I'd be pretty angry that pretty much their first act having quadrupled their number of MPs was to oppose green development.

In his first interview since finishing third last week in the [Clacton] election, Owusu-Nepaul insisted he had fought hard, and said he understood the need for the national campaign to take priority. But he warned that Reform should be a cause for concern “because of the type of politics they represent”.

“It was my first time standing in a parliamentary election and I would be lying if I said that at times I didn’t feel concern for the safety of those around me on the campaign,” he said.

“I am not saying this was a direct consequence of Farage but from his supporters there was vitriol and from the very beginning a sense of intimidation. I had people tear my leaflets up. We had people come out and spit at us. I had my name constantly interrogated about where I was ‘really from’.

“On social media I got a torrent of abuse all day, every day. It has only given me further resolve to keep going because it made me realise that there are many people online, trolls or whoever they are, who want to silence me and silence others who share a similar belief system.”

He added: “It felt like I had become a proxy for some of the things they hated. My profile had kind of got bigger and with that there was endless abuse. It was from people who were quite explicit about their intentions and who they were going to support, and that was Reform.

“The campaign was never about me. It was about ensuring that principles and values were communicated to voters. But I did learn a lot about the role of ethnic minorities in public life.”
[…]
Owusu-Nepaul said he believed the political atmosphere had permeated through to the local community. He said: “I spoke to a lady who was telling me her eight-year-old son was beginning to experience racial abuse in the playground. She said that [I] have to vote for you because Nigel Farage’s party has been whipping up emotions. She was desperately sad and angry.

“That really brought things home to me, the extent to which divisions were being stoked, and they were even manifesting in the school playground.”

He echoed Neil Kinnock – who has warned Labour not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Farage – and said he believed the best way for the left and progressive politicians to defeat the surge in support for the populist right was to address people’s material concerns.

“In Clacton I saw the type of endemic poverty which is a problem all over the country and goes back generations. It’s also been juxtaposed with a lot of over-promising and under-delivery. It’s become ingrained while the scapegoating of others has become a way of avoiding doing anything,” Owusu-Nepaul said.

He predicted that Farage would be a “one-term MP” because he would use the platform to serve his own ideological interests while local people in Clacton would lose out.

It’s too early to draw clear conclusions about the meaning of Thursday’s dramatic national election in the U.K., and still less about what lessons it might offer to America's feeble attempt to preserve democracy. But one thing is clear enough: Headlines around the world announcing that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has won a huge victory are factually accurate yet fail to convey the underlying complexity of the situation — especially the extent to which British politics has been thrown into complete disorder.

...

Based on near-final vote counts, Labour has won 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons — one of the largest majorities in British political history, and the party’s biggest win since Tony Blair’s neoliberal-flavored “New Labour” surged to victory in 1997.

But the actual voting patterns in this week's election appear not just counterintuitive but counterfactual, compared to those results.

Labour’s overall percentage of the total vote was up less than two points from its near-catastrophic 2019 loss — in fact, it appears that Labour received 500,000 fewer votes nationwide than it did under the supposedly toxic Corbyn regime. And if we compare this week's election with Corbyn’s narrow loss to Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017, the picture is even more upside-down: In that election, Labour got 40% of the vote and about 12.9 million votes overall; this time around, in what will go down as a historic victory, Labour garnered less than 34% of the vote, about 9.7 million in all.

Starmer’s supporters will no doubt shrug that off, and maybe they’re right: What matters in the British system, as in ours, is winning enough seats to control the reins of government, and Labour has certainly done that. But it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that below the surface Britain has just experienced an implosion of mainstream electoral politics, along the lines of what has already happened in major European nations like France, Germany and Italy. The full consequences of that meltdown are effectively concealed, however, by the U.K.’s “first past the post” electoral system, in which the candidate with the most votes in a given district wins the seat, even when that person often (or, indeed, most of the time) falls well short of a majority.

...

This leads to the most salient single fact of the 2024 British election: Labour's huge parliamentary majority is built on just 9.7 million votes; Reform and the Tories, put together, got nearly 11 million — and as a hypothetical united force, would probably have won. On paper and in the House of Commons, Keir Starmer looks like this year’s big winner, but the pendulum that just swung so hard in his direction can just as easily swing back. He needs to learn the lesson that American liberals and progressives are absorbing, in painful fashion, right now: Don’t assume that the disgruntled far right has been beaten just because it lost an election.

Archive

Starmer spoke to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and said he was committed to continuing the “vital co-operation” between the two nations to deter malign threats.

On the Israel-Hamas war, Starmer set out the “clear and urgent need for a ceasefire”, the return of hostages and an immediate increase in humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

He stressed the importance of ensuring the long-term conditions for a two-state solution in the region, including that the Palestinian Authority had the “financial means to operate effectively”.
[…]
The UK prime minister also turned to the topic of “ensuring international legitimacy for Palestine” and said that his “long-standing policy on recognition to contribute to a peace process had not changed”, adding that it was the “undeniable right of Palestinians”, according to his statement.
[…]
Three aspects of the Labour administration’s policy on the conflict remain unclear, starting with its assessment of the lawfulness of continuing to license arms exports to Israel.

The second is whether it will reinstate funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which the UK suspended following Israeli claims that some of its staffers belonged to Hamas and had participated in the October 7 attacks.

There is also the question of what the UK will do if the International Criminal Court presses ahead with issuing arrest warrants, for which its chief prosecutor has applied, against Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant for suspected war crimes in Gaza.

While Lammy said in May that the UK would seek to enforce such warrants if they were granted, Starmer has been more circumspect, commenting that: “I will deal with that when the court has made its decision.”

Former prime minister Mr Johnson has dissected his party's performance in his Daily Mail column, saying the reasons why the Tories lost so many MPs were "complex" - but "the Yucatan asteroid in this catastrophe was obvious: it was Reform".

Mr Johnson claimed to have heard from one Tory MP who "fully expected to win" but realised at the last minute "thousands" of Tory voters were opting for Reform, which in turn gave Labour a majority over both rivals.

"Repeat that phenomenon across the political landscape, and you begin to grasp the cause of the landslide," he added, before turning his attention to Mr Farage.

He wrote: "I am afraid that the cheroot-puffing Pied Piper of Clacton has played a significant part - as he no doubt intended - in the destruction of the Tory government."

Mr Johnson then offered advice for the Tories, while alluding to his own exit from Downing Street in June 2022.

"When we get back in, don't be too hasty to get rid of successful election-winning leaders," he said.

"As I never tire of telling people, some polls put us only two or three points behind, in the days before I was forced to resign in what was really a media-driven hoo-ha."

The government has ruled out the introduction of digital ID cards, after former Labour Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair said they could help control immigration.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds initially said the home secretary would "be looking at all sources of advice" on the issue.

However, he later told Times Radio ID cards were not part of the government's plans.

...

However, asked about the possibility of introducing digital ID cards, Mr Reynolds told Times Radio: "We can rule that out, that's not something that's part of our plans."

Opponents of identity cards have raised concerns about the potential impact on civil liberties and what they see as unnecessary data collection by the state.

“The world is a dangerous divided place, and this is a tough, geopolitical moment with huge challenges for Britain, but I’m excited about the project which is reconnecting Britain with the global community,” he said in his vast new office at the heart of the Victorian-era Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office building in Whitehall.

For years, the UK has been caught up in “an inward-looking conversation”, he said, as the impact of the Brexit referendum and years of troubled efforts to implement it soaked up political energy.

Now, that must end: “Britain has to start reconnecting with the world.” Resetting relations with Europe is a particular priority and his first trip abroad this weekend will take him to Germany, Poland and Sweden, to meet his counterpart in each country. He will then travel on to a Nato summit in Washington, with prime minister Keir Starmer.

“Let us put the Brexit years behind us. We are not going to rejoin the single market and the customs union but there is much that we can do together,” he said. “I want to be absolutely clear, European nations are our friends.”

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, she attributed the party's worst-ever defeat - in which it was reduced to just 121 seats - to the party pursuing an "idiotic strategy of intermittently and inconsistently making 'Tory Right' noises which disintegrated when set against our liberal Conservative record".

"I say again, whatever some of my colleagues think, the voters aren't mugs: they saw what we did in office and ignored what we insincerely said while campaigning," she added.

The former home secretary - who retained her seat of Fareham and Waterlooville but with a much-reduced majority - blamed "high taxes" and "high immigration" as well as "insane political correctness" she believed the party had embraced for the scale of the defeat.

Keir Starmer, one of four children, was brought up in the town of Oxted on the Kent-Surrey border.

He was raised by his toolmaker father and nurse mother, who suffered from a debilitating form of arthritis known as Still’s disease.

Sir Keir has spoken about the challenges of growing up at a time of high inflation in the 1970s.

“If you’re working class, you’re scared of debt,” he said during the election campaign.

“My mum and dad were scared of debt, so they would choose the bill that they wouldn’t pay.” The choice was the phone bill.

Sir Keir had a lot going on in his younger years.

He was obsessed with football (on the centre-left of midfield, of course). He was a talented musician and learnt violin with Norman Cook, who went on to become chart-topping DJ Fatboy Slim.

Sir Keir also had a rebellious streak. He and his friends were once caught by police illegally selling ice-cream on a French beach to raise cash.

But what about politics? There were always clues, including his name which was given to him as a tribute to the first leader of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie.

Sir Keir dabbled in left-wing politics over the course of his pre-parliamentary life.

That started at school, when he joined the Young Socialists, Labour’s youth movement.

After school, Sir Keir became the first person in his family to go to university, studying law at Leeds University and later at Oxford.

At Leeds, he was influenced by the indie music of the 1980s, from The Smiths and The Wedding Present to Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.

His biographer, Tom Baldwin, notes his favourite drink as a student was a mix of beer and cider - or Snakebite - and he had a taste for curry and chips.

For a while after graduating, Sir Keir lived above a brothel in north London.

Interesting in depth read. Obviously much less ambitious than Corbyn would have been but a lot of stuff there looks decent. I’m mostly worried about how they might reduce disability benefits which are already very hard to live on.

The sewage crisis was a significant factor in the Tories’ losing support in the “blue wall” in the south of England, electoral polling suggests.

Seven out of 10 voters supported legal measures to eliminate sewage spills in ecologically sensitive areas by 2030, according to polling conducted for Greenpeace by Survation just before the election. Less than a third of voters thought the Conservatives were right to weaken their commitments on the climate crisis and the environment.

The Tories lost 37 of the 52 “blue wall” seats in the south of England, with 24 taken by the Liberal Democrats, who campaigned strongly on sewage and the crisis of polluted rivers and beaches. Some of those seats, particularly along the Thames, include spots where some of the worst sewage problems have been reported.

One in four people in the region told pollsters that the Conservative party’s stance on the environment was a key reason for not voting for them; nationally, only a fifth of people cited this as a reason.

Tax officials are under pressure this weekend to publish estimated figures on offshore tax avoidance by some of the country’s wealthiest individuals after withholding the information in a report published during the election campaign.

In June 2022, Lucy Frazer, then financial secretary to the Treasury, pledged that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) would publish figures on the offshore tax gap, but the release of the figures has been repeatedly delayed. An HMRC report published on 20 June this year – four weeks after the election was called – estimated the tax gap to be £39.8bn for the 2022-23 tax year. The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should be collected and what has actually been paid.

A breakdown of the figures of “non-compliance by UK residents failing to declare their offshore income” was withheld by HMRC. Officials concluded that this “additional breakdown of the tax gap should not be released within the election period” in line with guidance for civil servants.

Election guidance for civil servants says that statistical activities should “avoid competition with parliamentary candidates for the attention of the public”.

The decision to withhold the estimated figures has been challenged by the investigative thinktank TaxWatch. It says that if HMRC concluded it was too controversial to publish the offshore tax gap figures, the publication of the other tax gap figures should also have been delayed.

Claire Aston, director of TaxWatch, said: “The main political parties pledged in their election manifestos to raise more revenue by closing the tax gap, and given that, these figures should not have been held back.”

I count 306 seats where Labour are 1st and the Conservatives 2nd, or Conservatives 1st and Labour 2nd.

In the other 326 seats, either the Lib Dems, Reform, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru or independents are a top two party. Where most voters live, the traditional Labour vs Conservative debate is no longer the relevant one.

A projection of how the election results would look if we used Additional Member System (AMS), like in Scotland and Wales.

The former Labour leader clinched a victory with more than 24,000 votes, compared to Labour candidate Praful Nargund who won more than 16,000.

It will come as a huge relief to Mr Corbyn, who has represented the north London constituency for 40 years.

Speaking at the count, he said: "I want to place on record my enormous thanks to the people of Islington North for electing me for the 11th time."

He added: "We have shown what kinder, gentler and more sensible, more inclusive politics can bring about.

"I couldn't be more proud of my constituency than I am tonight and proud of our team that brought this result. Thank you very much Islington North for the result we have achieved tonight."

Islington North was on a knife edge, with the earlier general election exit poll saying that it was too close to call.

It was the hat what did it! 😂😂😂

Despite the Labour party winning an unprecedented majority of 174 - the largest any party in the UK has achieved since 1832 the party's share of the vote only increased by 1.7% to 33.8%; hardly a winning endorsement. Turnout was approximately 60% which is the lowest since 2001. The LibDems who have regularly campaigned for PR may now be changing their tune. Due to the nature of how the party's support is clustered in particular geographical areas the LibDems they have disproportionately from FPTP. The LibDems polled 3,499,933 or 12.2% of vote and received 71. Reform UK in contrast has it support thinnly spread across the UK. The party polled 4,091,549 or 14.3% but on won four seats.