Re 6pm Starmer. Work/life balance in politics courtesy of Dr Seth Thévoz🇺🇦(@seththevoz.bsky.social)

Got a leaflet through my door (Cities London and Westminster) for a completely serious independent candidate called 'Mr. John Generic' His slogan is 'Tired of your vote not making a REAL difference?' Vote Generic!

I am waiting the picture of piled up rubbish from 1979. 'Under the Labour supermajority the dead won't be buried'

DR BLAXILL on the France 24 Election Results Special, 10-11.30 pm tonight!

If this is right the pollsters are way off on vote share Lab very lucky to get such a majority on a 10 percentage point lead #GeneralElection2024

A rather effective illustration of Keir Starmer's tower of sand. However, it does use votes rather than vote share though which makes it look more extreme given the turnout differences in the three elections in question.

On Times Radio with Lord Ed Vaizey at 8.10pm for some chat about the election in wider historical perspective

I don't think the voting intention polls come out of this election looking very good. 34/24 is nothing like what they had predicted, even in the last few days of the campaign where there were hints of a fall in the Labour vote.

The Lib Dems came second in only 27 seats, and first in 71. That's incredible efficiency.

JRM hypothesises Reform being treated by the Tories like the Liberal Unionists used to be, 1886-1910. In other words, strategic standdowns to ensure one allied candidate. I (wrongly) predicted that this would happen in 2024, but I think it's a distinct possibility in 2028/9.

Hypothesis: the Digital Historian's new best friend in getting hired by a History Department is the reaction to (and principally fear of) Chat GPT 4 and allied LLMs.

King's Speech: Real localism in Britain would require abandoning national standards and embracing a 'postcode lottery' of service provision. The 19th century local elector (also a ratepayer) was happy to accept this as a consequence of 'municipal democracy'. We won't now.

Labour now holds more rural and semi-rural seats than it used to. It is no longer just a party of the cities, which means it can't indulge in the Conservatives game of playing one type of geography off against another. Here are Labour's seats by population density. 1/

I find it amusing that an MP with 3 weeks experience of an institution of 700 years standing expects her 'initial impressions' of the defects of the Commons to be taken seriously precisely *because* they are based on no actual experience of how it operates.

The British public love removing liberties they do not use from other people

Proud to have this article (on which I am lead author) on Electoral Violence in Britain published in Past & Present. It's on Open Access, so have a gander...

Five and a half hours if Warhammer discussion

Writing about the Colchester By Election of 1870 (which I know something about) and not about US Election of 2024 (which I don't)