This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The most shocking thing to me about this story is that Farage is somehow still only 60.

He's younger than Starmer!

[Torrain]

Nick Fletcher appears to be endorsing Lee Anderson against the eventual Conservative candidate in Ashfield.
https://twitter.com/NickFletcherMP/status/1778374776701989007
Sailing pretty close to the wind regarding his own party whip, surely? Unless that’s the point, and this is him shuffling towards the door.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think he may have left just enough "strategic ambiguity" there to avoid immediate sanction.

But yes, hardly encouraging from a party management standpoint.

[Blair]

A sign of the times; in current circumstances in Labour this would get you booted out but equally you could see a situation in 2019 where an MP could have said this about a Change UK defection, and well you never want your party management to be compared to that era!

[Pericles]

I wonder if some of these Red Wall seats are so marginal that their MPs are calculating that they're better off taking their chances as a Reform candidate than as a Tory?

[YL]

I wonder if some of these Red Wall seats are so marginal that their MPs are calculating that they're better off taking their chances as a Reform candidate than as a Tory?

Fletcher is actually helped quite a bit by the boundary changes, though not by enough under current polling. The Isle of Axholme is not very Labour.

What he said seems pretty unambiguous to me and it’s a measure of the weakness of Sunak’s position that he appears to be getting away with it.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1778419883480580137
Not even a retraction? Man, Sunak’s weak right now.

I’m sure this little moment of cowardice will have no repercussions in the run-up to the next election…

[CumbrianLefty]

A sign of the times; in current circumstances in Labour this would get you booted out but equally you could see a situation in 2019 where an MP could have said this about a Change UK defection, and well you never want your party management to be compared to that era!

Indeed, because Corbyn was then in a weak position just like Sunak now. Starmer, not so much.

[Torrain]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

[MaxQue]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

[YL]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

One of the first signs of the political changes in Worthing was when the constituency, where Labour had never really looked in contention before, swung 10% to them in 2017.

It does include the whole of Adur district (Shoreham as well as other places between Worthing and Hove) as well as the east side of Worthing.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour did finish second in WE&S in 2001 and 2005, so its not like they were completely out of it as they were in the other Worthing seat. But the big swing in 2017 took many by surprise.

[Oryxslayer]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

One of the first signs of the political changes in Worthing was when the constituency, where Labour had never really looked in contention before, swung 10% to them in 2017.

It does include the whole of Adur district (Shoreham as well as other places between Worthing and Hove) as well as the east side of Worthing.

I mean it's not like those other places are Conservative anchors pulling in the other direction.  Quite the opposite,  Worthing is just most prominently displays Labour's gains. Adur for example has been on the same trajectory and timeline as Worthing, it just has only two classes of councilors not three. So there was less ability to slowly chip.away at the seat count, as since no councilor was up last year,  the Tories still have control.  But that will likely end in May.

IMO Worthing is the type of place that's eventually going to end up in the Safe Labour column. Like how Brighton saw a just as spectacular innitial Tory collapse, to be followed by Labour kicking out the 2010 Conservatives even while losing overall elsewhere in the country. Maybe not this election but give it a few years and a similar situation.

[TheTide]

When I saw the headline (regarding Loughton) of how a 'long-,standing Tory MP' was about to stand down, I was about to go into a rant about the misuse of the term 'long-standing'. As it is, he's been there since 1997. For some reason I had it in my mind that he was part of either the 2005 or 2010 intake.

[MaxQue]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

One of the first signs of the political changes in Worthing was when the constituency, where Labour had never really looked in contention before, swung 10% to them in 2017.

It does include the whole of Adur district (Shoreham as well as other places between Worthing and Hove) as well as the east side of Worthing.

I mean it's not like those other places are Conservative anchors pulling in the other direction.  Quite the opposite,  Worthing is just most prominently displays Labour's gains. Adur for example has been on the same trajectory and timeline as Worthing, it just has only two classes of councilors not three. So there was less ability to slowly chip.away at the seat count, as since no councilor was up last year,  the Tories still have control.  But that will likely end in May.

IMO Worthing is the type of place that's eventually going to end up in the Safe Labour column. Like how Brighton saw a just as spectacular innitial Tory collapse, to be followed by Labour kicking out the 2010 Conservatives even while losing overall elsewhere in the country. Maybe not this election but give it a few years and a similar situation.

Let's be clear, a Conservative who had a larger majority in 2005 than in 2019 and a similar one in both 1997 and 2017 is trending the wrong way for them.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/FinnBaker3/status/1779914781584921086?t=GAjZcPwvugZG-8Fyuljq...

Here's something that I missed yesterday: he was retirement number 100 overall for this parliament.

[Torrain]

Yeah - it’s been quite a steady stream of retirements (as predicted over the new year period). Definitely looks like we’ll surpass 1997 - getting past 2010 might be a bit of a stretch unless we get a stampede for the doors at dissolution.

Worth noting that a millennia of combined parliamentary experience is going to be lost, just within the Tories. Although that’s not entirely due to Bill Cash retiring, as the Guardian mischievously implied last month:

[CumbrianLefty]

Yeah - it’s been quite a steady stream of retirements (as predicted over the new year period). Definitely looks like we’ll surpass 1997 - getting past 2010 might be a bit of a stretch unless we get a stampede for the doors at dissolution.

Worth noting that a millennia of combined parliamentary experience is going to be lost, just within the Tories. Although that’s not entirely due to Bill Cash retiring, which the Guardian mischievously implied last month:

Though given the current state of the Tories, that surely can't be ruled out.

[Hnv1]

https://twitter.com/FinnBaker3/status/1779914781584921086?t=GAjZcPwvugZG-8Fyuljq...

Here's something that I missed yesterday: he was retirement number 100 overall for this parliament.

The correlation with 97 and 2010 strongly implies it's a way to jump ship when your party is heading to a defeat

[CumbrianLefty]

Indeed, though IIRC a fair few Tories retired at the 2010 election too - it ended the period after the 1997 GE when there had been *less* MP turnover than usual at GEs.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

If Peter Bottomley is defeated (his Worthing seat seems like one of those places that will fall in a bad result) there will be no more MPs elected from the 70s (Sheerman and Harman are standing down). I assume Leigh will be safe even in the worst scenarios, so he may be father of the House.

Related, assuming he stands again I think Clive Betts will be the most senior Labour MP left, with everybody else retiring or having lost the whip. No more 80s Labour people!

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/FinnBaker3/status/1779914781584921086?t=GAjZcPwvugZG-8Fyuljq...

Here's something that I missed yesterday: he was retirement number 100 overall for this parliament.

The correlation with 97 and 2010 strongly implies it's a way to jump ship when your party is heading to a defeat

The 2010 election was actually quite close though, I wonder if the Labour retirements changed the result in a meaningful way.

[EastAnglianLefty]

https://twitter.com/FinnBaker3/status/1779914781584921086?t=GAjZcPwvugZG-8Fyuljq...

Here's something that I missed yesterday: he was retirement number 100 overall for this parliament.

The correlation with 97 and 2010 strongly implies it's a way to jump ship when your party is heading to a defeat

The 2010 election was actually quite close though, I wonder if the Labour retirements changed the result in a meaningful way.

No. We went down to heavy defeat in most of the marginal seats with retirements, largely because we didn't resource them (or a fair number of seats where incumbents were standing again) so that we could concentrate on seats it was possible to hold.

[CumbrianLefty]

If Peter Bottomley is defeated (his Worthing seat seems like one of those places that will fall in a bad result) there will be no more MPs elected from the 70s (Sheerman and Harman are standing down). I assume Leigh will be safe even in the worst scenarios, so he may be father of the House.

Related, assuming he stands again I think Clive Betts will be the most senior Labour MP left, with everybody else retiring or having lost the whip. No more 80s Labour people!

The post-1979 parliament yes, but Harman actually entered the Commons in a 1982 byelection.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Bizarre story about Mark Menzies (Fylde) has dropped in the Times - in December he was locked in a flat by "bad people" he met on a dating site, and proceeded to call a 78 year old party volunteer to ask for 5k to be wired to him asap at 3am, a ransom that quickly increased to 6.5k and was eventually paid via campaign funds (although not before his office manager had to cash out her personal ISA). And apparently money has been going missing to pay for "health concerns" regularly.