#OTD 1997. Eve of General Election. Tony Blair speaks at a final rally in Stockton-on-Tees:

'This is not a landslide country. Between now and when the polls close we will strive for every vote in every corner of the country'

Polls point to a 20pt Labour lead

Weird way to use twitter
Pay for blue tick
Pay for your tweets to be adverts

10/10, no notes.

You will not see a better example of the pathetic cosplay revolutionary genre than this.

Back to elections and the parliamentary by election on Thursday in Blackpool South, when Benton was suspended back in April 2023 I said this was the type of by election I had been waiting for
A traditional NW England Lab/tory marginal, a seat where turnout has been below 60% in…

“Come here and we will pay you to leave”
Sounds more like an incentive than a deterrent to me

Today something weird happened with Twitter, a lot of accounts that usually rack-up 100s of views very quickly have tweets showing as being viewed by less than 100 after an hour
Earlier I had one tweet with more ‘likes’ than views

Enter my free sweepstake on mayoral elections on 2 May – guess the winner in North East, Tees Valley, York & N Yorks and W Midlands; tie-break: Reform % of vote in Blackpool S by-election docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

Away from any political considerations PaulforPCC has certainly put in the miles, not sure there is a part of Sussex he hasn’t visited

This is a long(ish) read from Tom Hamilton but worth reading
“Landing the idea that it’s OK and normal for former Tory voters to be voting Labour now is critical to Labour’s election strategy, because Tory switchers count double”
open.substack.com/pub/dividingli…

Tbh it is a silly claim to make given the history but if Gove wants to play that game tory councils in West Northamptonshire, Cornwall, Epping Forest, South Holland Harrow are a disaster for local residents

My view on the Blackpool South by election, reading back it is a slightly depressing read