Coming out of the corner

After a particularly unpleasant interaction with someone who apparently was unable to read the post to which they replying, and unable to get past their own prejudices to understand someone else's point of view, I have decided to make a few changes.

Okay - I have decided to make one change, but it is quite a large change, since it will reverberate back through every post I've written up to now and for every post into the future.

I've turned off replies. So posts can be liked and reblogged, but can no longer be replied to.

I admit the decision probably wasn't helped by spending part of the day getting really fucked off by the people on BlueSky (a lot of people annoying me whining about Burnham's response to the wildfires and Climate change - I think they were just using it as an excuse to whine about Burnham)

When you combine all of that with a self-satisfied, smug, crazy person who has no concept of nuance........ sometimes you just decide that enough is enough.

Jason Arday found dead after being forced out of Cambridge due to plagaraism accusations.

According to the BBC, Nigel Farage won with a majority of 63% of the vote, which was a huge increase on the General Election. His vote share went up 17%, and his majority went up 4,379 (from 18% to 36%).

Which sounds like it was a resounding, stunning, thumping victory of a win, doesn't it?

What all this misses out is that the turnout in 2024 was 58% (45,958) and the turnout last night was 44% (35,111). And that in 2024 there were 78,245 voters, and in 2026 there were 79,785 voters.

So shall we have a more detailed look?

In 2024, Farage got 21,225 votes out of an electorate of 78,245. This is an actual, real terms percentage of 27%. (21.1263%)

In 2026, he got 22,239 votes out of an electorate of 79,785. This is an actual, real terms percentage of 27%. (27.8736%)

His percentage of the vote didn't go up by 17% points. It went up by less than 1% point. It went up by 0.7473%

This is not something the BBC appear to be reporting.

Then we come to the majority.

A majority went up by 4,379 and by 18% points (more or less doubling)?

His majority didn't double, it went up by around 50%. But because the number of people who voted dropped by thirteen percentage points, the majority looks a lot larger.

And the fail to mention the majority is against a man who - before yesterday - never got above 500 votes in a Parliamentary election.

So where does this leave Nigel Farage and his stunning, thumping, convincing victory?

He picked up just over 1000 votes, in a constituency that had grown by just over 1500 voters.

His majority grew by only a few thousand votes when he was facing off over a man who hadn't picked up more than 500 votes before, and who picked up more than a hundred times more votes than when he was up against the new Prime Minister of this United Kingdom.

Turnout was less than half the constituency - fewer people than came out to vote in the General Election.

A recall ballot would require 10% of the 79,785 voters to vote "yes" on the proposition - a mere 7,978 people - to force another by-election. If you add up the people who didn't vote for him last night, it comes to more than 7,978.

This stunning, thumping, overwhelming victory looks a tad hallow and shallow.

Especially since all it achieved was to give him a seat he already had.

MPs can't be sworn in while Parliament isn't sitting, because they have to take their oath while Parliament is in session.

As such they must wait until Parliament reconvenes to be sworn in.

Members of Parliament who are elected during this period do not earn their salary. Because they are not employed as MPs.

Members of Parliament who are not sworn in as MPs cannot act as MPs, cannot take part in debates, cannot vote and cannot perform other duties of MPs.

I just thought I'd mention this because there is a by-election happening tonight and someone is going to be returned as the MP for Clacton WHILE PARLIAMENT IS NOT IN SESSION

He was born on the day of a solar eclipse?

Apparently Andy Burnham's plans to stop businesses exploiting kids are pissing off the businesses that are exploiting kids.

And they want to continue exploiting kids, because it is good for their businesses.

So they are suggesting if they can't continue exploiting kids, then their businesses will suffer, and that will be bad for the country......... in some way that isn't entirely clear.

It's not entirely clear why we should believe them, but apparently they are very frowny about it, and they really want to go on exploiting kids.

Andy Burnham wants to stop them exploiting kids, and make life better for the kids, but that would be bad, according to the people who are doing the exploiting.

I am not a fan of this newspaper - i haven't been since 1989 and the way they lied about Hillborough and everything they did since then (failure to own up, failure to admit it, failure to do anything about it for thirty years or more).

It’s 10pm on Wednesday the 12th of August, which means in about 24 hours, the polls will have closed in Clacton after the most pointless by-election we have seen in a very long time.

The leader of the far-right “party”, Reform UK, is predicted to “win” the seat, and his sycophantic supporters are already suggesting this is going to be some kind of magnificent triumph - a Homeric, nay Herculean effort that will inscribe his name in the history books for now and all time as a true political genius.

Except he already had this seat.

He won the seat in the 2024 general election with a majority of 8, 405 on a turnout of 58%.

He wasn’t forced to resign. He wasn’t recalled.

He did this of his own volition. Of his own free will. He gave up his seat so he could win it back.

This isn’t a fight against the odds. This isn’t a Homeric triumph. This isn’t a Herculean effort.

This isn’t even him winning a seat. This is him just restoring the status quo. He is going back to what he already had.

If he wins tomorrow, nothing will have changed.

If he wins, he has won against thirty three people who stood because it was a bit of free publicity. Who stood because the election was a joke. Who stood because they saw a chance to get their fifteen minutes.

I can’t imagine any of them believe they will actually win - not even Count Binface who is the front runner to depose him.

And he will have to win by more than he won by in 2024, otherwise it will be a humiliation. But not just by more in numbers - because if the turnout increases and the majority doesn’t increase by the same amount, then it will be easy enough to argue he lost his majority.

He will have to increase his percentage, and the swing to him. Which will be hard to judge because none of the other parties from 2024 are there and most of the people who are standing are new.

It will be hard to judge, but I suspect that - like porn, good jazz, espionage and dark magic - we will know whether the result is good for him when we see it.

But just to be clear - whether he wins big, or wins little, or doesn’t win at all, he is just restoring the status quo. He is going back to a seat he already had and a seat he gave up of his own free will.

And the final thing to understand is that this will not stop the investigation into his dealings.

If he wins, he will become an MP again, and subject to the oversight of Parliament. And Parliament will pretty much pick up from where it left off.

No doubt his argument will be “The people of Clacton returned me to my seat, and shouldn’t they have the final say”. Except that isn’t how it works - it’s never how it works. If that were how it works no MP would ever be investigated for anything, because ALL MPs are elected by the people. It would quite literally give them free reign to do anything they want.

Which would be a ridiculous state of affairs.

I understand that Parliament is sovereign - I don’t necessarily like the idea (I think they should be answerable to the courts, but I don’t get to make that judgement) - and if Parliament is going to be sovereign then all MPs have to answer to it. You can’t say “Parliament is sovereign” and then refuse to answer to its judgement.

All of this is by way of saying tomorrow night will see the polls close in Clacton, and by early Friday morning we will see who is to be returned to Parliament. And I suspect that the person who will be returning to Parliament will be returning to Parliament after a by-election that was a complete and total waste of time.

And yet his lick-spittle sycophants will not see it that way.

Tomorrow night, and on Friday morning, they will tell us we have a new British hero to worship and adore.

This was trending at 11:00 this morning.

I realise America has a history of putting results before the counting is done.

But the POLLS DON'T FUCKING OPEN UNTIL TOMORROW

(I have a single request before you read this - read the entire entry, through to the end, and consider all of the consequences of what I'm saying, before you rush to judgement and decide I am a horrible person who should be attacked and condemned)

x=x=x=x=x=x

Our new Prime Minister is currently being attacked for the "early release of prisoners" scheme that is, amongst others, going to see two men who were involved in the death of a police officer let back on the streets before their full sentence is up.

And apparently he is "doing everything he can" to ensure they stay behind bars.

Which is something I find more than a little worrying. Because it means that our judicial system - a system that is supposed to be independent, and free from political bias - has turned into a political football. That the lives of these men are now being argued over in the press in an attempt to score cheap political points by one side or another.

You might say "what do we care? They are killers, criminals" and while that may be true, they are still human beings, and if they were your brothers, your sons, your fathers would you want their fates to be decided in the court of public opinion?

But my bigger worry is not just that. My bigger worry is more than these two men - two men who did something wrong seven years ago, and who may or may not have paid their debt to society and may or may not deserve to be released in the next few weeks.

My worry is that if we start letting politicians get involved in individual cases then where does it end.

These two men are currently the poster children (if you will pardon the phrase) for the early release scheme because they were involved in the death of a police officer.

However we've seen things in the past where someone has been up for probation - someone who has legitimately been on the list for probation, because they have served a good deal of their sentence and the law of the land says they are due for probation - but the press gets hold of the story and says "We disapprove of this person" so the opposition party says "IF WE WERE IN POWER WE WOULD NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN" and suddenly the person's life is not controlled by the law of the land, it is controlled by the court of public opinion. And controlled by politics.

If these two men had killed a poor, homeless guy in the same way, would anyone care they are about to be released? A man would still be dead - would still have died in the same brutal, horrific way. But the press wouldn't care, so their lives wouldn't matter.

If these two men had killed an immigrant, would anyone care they are about to be released? A man would still be dead - would still have died in the same brutal, horrific way. But the press wouldn't care, so their lives wouldn't matter.

Politics should not control our judicial system. It shouldn't control our legal system. If someone is worthy of probation, it shouldn't matter what their crime is, or what the press think of them, or what the public think of them.

And if someone is eligible for early release, they should be eligible for early release. It shouldn't be dependent on having someone famous who can lobby for them or against them. It shouldn't be dependent on the political feelings of the day. It shouldn't be dependent on the mob baying for their blood or a mob chanting for their release.

It shouldn't be a case of the crowd shouting CRUCIFY HIM and Pontius Pilate pointing to one or the other because their supporters can shout the loudest.

Our judicial system should not be episode after episode of reality television.

WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY GOVERNED BY THE RULE OF LAW

And if we are to believe in the law, we have to believe in the law.

I've made no secret that I am a fan of Harry Potter. It was something that my Most Beloved and I bonded over - something that in the twenty two years we were together we had in common and made our lives much better. Something we did together and lived together.

It's something I'm not going to give up, because to do so would be a betrayal of all the memories I share with her and all the times we made together.

But I've also made no secret of the utter loathing, the complete hatred and the utter contempt in which I hold the author of the series. In which I hold her views, the way she treats those she doesn't like the way she behaves - literally everything about her.

If anyone is in doubt about this then they have not been paying attention and really need to read through more of my posts, more of my entries.

Sure - there are some of my older posts (before she went nuts) that do suggest she is a good person, but I challenge anyone to find posts since she went mental to find any posts like that.

I have repeatedly said you can separate the work from the author.

Fanfiction doesn't make her richer. Debate doesn't make her richer. Posts like this don't make her richer.

This. Is. Our. House. Now.

I've already been kicked off one website for posting a simple quote about the series. Not for praising her glory or praising her name - something you won't find me doing - but just for posting a quote from the series.

I'm now on the verge of leaving another site for much the same reason - they appear to be favouring accounts that are against people who like the series. Not who like the author, but like the series.

I'm going to try a few experiments on the site, just to see what happens, but if it goes the way I think it will, then I'll have my answer.

But when it comes to here, and one or two other sites, this is a hill I will die on.

Happy National Book Lovers Day

To those who celebrate it.