For hope over racism. The good people of Gorton and Denton very firmly voted for the outstanding Green candidate Hannah Spencer, with a clear majority over Reform and Labour. This was despite a rather negative campaign by the 2 other contenders. The Conservatives and Lib Dems lost their deposits. OK this was just one byelection and too much will be read into it. However it is a measure of how the general population is not all racist or stupid; and also that Starmers lurch to the right is not popular with Labour voters – they have gone from a majority of over 15000 to 5000 behind. So will the other parties learn from this? Reform that racist policies, whilst popular with the RWMedia are not overly popular with the electorate at large. Labour shoulld learn that tinkering with Tory policies is not enough – whole scale reform of trhe economic landscape is necessary if they are not to follow the tories into oblivion. The tories, like the CoE have a dying constituency, they have bitter and nasty leaders and no new policies of any note – I am sure they will retain some seats and councils in the Home Counties but the future looks bleak for them. Traditional conservatism was destroyed by Johnson and then some by Truss, Sunak was a holding shadow. The Lib Dems will be the same old – popular where their local organisation is strong, but the reliance on a protest vote against Lab/Cons is a ship that has sailed. They may get votes from those unhappy with the leftish policies of the greens and the votes of tories and Reform unhappy with the right wing fascist polies of Farage and Badenoch.
So is this a new begining? We will wait and see how the Unions support for Labour holds up and whilst the Tories have rich donors they may defect to the lower taxes promised by Reform (greedy bastards). All the traditional parties have been given a warning by the electorate
Liike always I am not sure the Greens are correct on all policies, but if they can initiate a sensible discussion regarding migration, a super tax, council tax, drugs, the environment and climate change amongst others it will be great. It was also heartening to see that the Daily Mails disgraceful attempt at demeaning Hannah Spencer and her policies failed miserably.