Ah yes. If there is an option on payment metres in car parks/stations for instructions in French or German I always select that option for as many as I can. Utterly pointless I know, a little twattish perhaps, but it amuses me and it hurts no-one *blows raspberry and giggles*.

Well, they are aren’t they. Farage is actually telling the truth about that.

Maybe. There’s some evidence of that from Council by-elections, and there’s the potential for that in Scotland and Wales with Plaid and the SNP, and in an English by-election. But I’m not convinced that will be the case in England in a General Election.

I think that depends. People are (understandably, but a touch unrealistically) impatient for things to get better faster than they are doing, and some, myself included, despair at the tactics of trying to out-Reform Reform.

I don’t disagree with your point about Plaid either. I’m not a tribalist. I cheer every Reform defeat, whether in Council or Parliamentary by-elections, and I’m not overly bothered who beats them, as long as somebody does.

Labour losing a lot of seats is guaranteed: The last GE was a high water mark, and there’s a trend against incumbency throughout Europe. Add in right-wing media control and Cambridge Analytica type ops, a 5/6 party system and much increased electoral volatility. It’s only going one way.

Don’t get me wrong. Caerphilly gave me hope, and I do think tactical voting and a broad progressive is important, but keeping Farage out can’t be left to hope alone.

As I said, it was a by-election, so there was less ‘noise’ from national media coverage/polls. Local media/polls focus on the one seat, which means voters know more about the candidates and electoral history, so can make better informed choices.

Unfortunately, by-elections are very different. You can’t rely on a (generally) badly educated and (overwhelmingly) misinformed public to reliably perform electoral calculus in a General Election. If Labour don’t give us PR and do a deal with the Lib Dems, a Farage govt will be on them.

And behaves like a spoilt, arsey teenager to suggest his teenage views are in the past.

With the size of their majority they certainly could have done more. And they should have. 16 months is plenty of time if an issue is prioritised.

Yep. Exactly that.

And a Labour government, our country’s last chance saloon, should have seen this coming, and could have done something to stop it. But they lack a political killer instinct. They need to develop one. Damn fast!

And here they are! Perfect with merguez sausages, baba ganoush and pitta bread.

Well, they would, wouldn’t they.

Proof, were more needed, that some barrels don’t have bottoms at all.

Absolutely! Even the briefest of glances at Reform’s performance in the Councils it controls reveals they’re not fit to clean the municipal toilets. And it might not happen at all if Labour get their act together and gloves off.