[Arrowhead]

Chelmsley Wood? It's a really sharp contrast between there and the forest of Arden.

Yep, plus Kingshurst and Castle Bromwich too. I think I’m right in saying it’s the constituency with biggest contrast between areas of social deprivation and affluence in the entire country, or it was when I last checked.

[Arrowhead]

Also gone- Daniel Kawczynski, booted out of Shrewsbury with 22.4%, barely half the Labour vote.

Wonderful news, I hadn’t realised Kawczynski was gone as well. The average IQ of the HoC just jumped up several notches.

I think it was Sam Freedman who, very amusingly, earlier this year predicted GE2024 would be like a colonic irrigation for parliament. He wasn’t wrong!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep, plus Kingshurst and Castle Bromwich too. I think I’m right in saying it’s the constituency with biggest contrast between areas of social deprivation and affluence in the entire country, or it was when I last checked.

That would be somewhere in London, wouldn't it? I'd guess Cities of London and Westminster- Pimlico has tons of social housing.

[Arrowhead]

That would be somewhere in London, wouldn't it? I'd guess Cities of London and Westminster- Pimlico has tons of social housing.

Yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few London constituencies have overtaken us in the past few years.

[slilley]

Voted tactically for Tan Dhesi in Slough.

No need here its a straight fight between us and Tories (Electoral Calculus - usual caveats apply - has us at 99%)

As it turned out it was a fight between Labour and a formerlabour councillor standing as an independent.

[Youngian]

This crank was nearly an MP. He's got MP in his Twitter name even if he lost. Predictably amplified by 5 Pillars.

Is Mr McIntyre a white bloke cosplaying like Spike Milligan in a turban?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ht was briefly notorious in 2011. The Police removed him from his wheelchair at the student protests, and on the back of that he got a regular media gig as a sort of protest correspondent.

He duly pissed that away by cheering on Tottenham being burned down by rioters, and getting sacked. He's reinvented himself as a religious scholar. Doubtless the hard left wil be giving him hell like they do transphobic West Streeting and Keir Starmer.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GR01ITkacAAEQiR?format=png

[Abernathy]

I think Jody McIntyre was given a clear run at Jess by the other putative crank/pro Palestine candidates, and almost pulled it off.

I am worried, though. The more I hear about the level of intimidation, threats, aggression, and actual violence that emanated from these candidates and their supporters during this campaign, and not just in Birmingham Yardley, the more concerned I become.

Essentially, concern for the Palestinian people seems to be, for most of these jokers, little more than a convenient hook upon which to hang what is the real casus beli for most of them, the drivers that actually propel their campaigns : rampant misogyny and homophobia. At least two of the independent candidates expressed support for the execrable Andrew Tait.

This is a very real problem, and not just in Birmingham seats with high concentrations of muslim voters like Yardley, Perry Barr, Hall Green & Moseley, and Ladywood (where Shabana was probably saved by the successful mobilisation of city-centre apartment dwellers and voters in the gay village very concerned by the manifestations of homophobia apparent in the independent candidates’ campaign). It was happening too in Leicester, where Jonathan Ashworth was a victim, and in London seats.

I’m really not sure how we tackle this, but tackle it we must. End arms sales to Israel? Unlikely to happen. Formal recognition of Palestinian statehood? Again, not inconceivable, but still very unlikely under a Starmer government. But steps like these would surely be no more than appeasement of the thuggish tactics of the “independents”? How do we counter the misogyny, the homophobia, the aggression ?

As ever, answers on a virtual postcard, please.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The guy who beat Ashworth sounds like he'll stand against this shit, in fairness to him.

[Arrowhead]

There are currently plenty of swanky new high rise apartment blocks currently going up across Digbeth, which will probably result in thousands of affluent new voters moving into the Birmingham Ladywood constituency inside the next couple of years. They should (theoretically) make things a little easier for Shabana Mahmood by the time we reach GE2029.

[Youngian]

Whatever we may think of Galloway, the battering of the Workers Party canvasser was outrageous.
Can’t say I noticed any aggressive tension in Peterborough where Labour took a dent among Asian voters over Gaza. A says it like it is Pakistani Labour councillor I met telling constituents thinking of voting for WP to go and live under Hamas probably didn’t win many friends.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Whoops.

[The Weeping Angel]

Luke Tryl reckons Gaza is just the trigger for voters leaving Labour.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's a good thread.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not good.

[Abernathy]

Whatever we may think of Galloway, the battering of the Workers Party canvasser was outrageous.

Could you expand on this, Ian ? I’m somewhat unaware.

[safe_timber_man]

A candidate's son was jumped while leafleting. Sounds like a coordinated attack rather than a random pissed off opposition but haven't seen any updates.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I hope he's OK.
This came into politics with the first rise of UKIP, when we had people (usually young women) abused and attacked in the street. I myself had to deal with a very aggressive drunk who wanted to attack one of our people.
In 20 years before that I had never seen anything like it (though I once got bitten by a dog. A Labour dog...)

[Bones McCoy]

A candidate's son was jumped while leafleting. Sounds like a coordinated attack rather than a random pissed off opposition but haven't seen any updates.

I'm going to step into dangerous speculation.

This doesn't seem like typical political argument.
May political argument never go that way.

It does sound a lot like examples of community violence.

I don't know about the candidate of his family, so am not speaking from authority.
If it is community violence, it's likely that only the inhabitants of a few streets will understand the dynamics.

That's all.