Snapshots of the election

It was obviously going to be a Labour landslide because, as Conrad Black explained last week, the Conservatives deserved to lose.

I’m not going to attempt some in-depth analysis, a task for which I am not best qualified.

Some polls predicted 17+ seats for Reform; this was always wishful thinking in my opinion. I was fearful they wouldn’t get any (remembering Nigel Farage’s fate in his home district of Thanet last time when ballot boxes went missing, which has to my knowledge never been properly explained). In the event they have 4 and over 100 consitituencies (including my own) put them in a good second place.

But as a picker up of unconsidered trifles these are a few incidents which I think show areas worthy of attention.

‘Vote for Labour is a vote for genocide’ poster seen in east London. Van carrying electronic poster featuring crossed-out Labour logo parked in constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney.

The van was parked (the morning of the election) on Columbia Road, in the constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, where Rushanara Ali is standing for Labour.

The electronic poster, seemingly referring to the war in Gaza, read: “A vote for Labour is a vote for genocide. #GetRushanaraOut.”

Bethnal Green and Stepney has a high percentage of Muslim voters.

Miss Ali kept the seat for Labour but the pro-Gaza independent Ajmal Masroor was a close second.  Uma Kumaran (mentioned on the van) was re-elected for Labour in the nearby constituenct of Bow.

From Rochdale on Line

George Galloway absent as Paul Waugh announced as Rochdale’s new MP.

George Galloway’s brief tenure as Rochdale’s MP ended suddenly today (Friday 5 July) as Labour’s candidate Paul Waugh won the seat by 1,440 votes. He was surpassed by Rochdale-born Paul Waugh, who won with 13,027 votes over 11,587.  Reform UK’s Michael Howard came third, with 6,773 votes.

I regard this next item with a certain relief as Wes Streeting is one of the better eggs in the Labour party (it’s a low bar). Middle East Eye looks at it from the opposite direction which is always illuminating.

British-Palestinian independent candidate Leanne Mohamad has narrowly lost the race for Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting’s seat in Ilford North by a margin of just 528 votes.

Mohamad secured 15,119 votes in Thursday’s UK general election, comprising around 32.2 percent of the vote, while Streeting won the East London seat with 15,647 votes, around 33.4 percent of the vote,

A stalwart of the Labour Party’s right wing, Streeting had seen demonstrations outside his constituency office earlier this year over his stance on Gaza. He had repeatedly opposed a ceasefire and insisted on Israel’s right to self-defence.  A parliamentary source recently told Middle East Eye that Streeting regularly meets with the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) lobby group inside Westminster. He was the first member of Labour’s shadow cabinet to visit Israel after Starmer was elected leader,

Leanne Mohammed started young with this entry for a Jack Petchey award competition in 2016. Incidently Mr Petchey died last week aged 98. He was a good man.

Rosie Duffield was re-elected as MP for Canterbury, with an increased majority, despite all the intimidation and threats of violence for her principled stand on behalf of safe spaces for women and the basic definition of a woman (adult human female) for which she received no support from Labour party HQ.  She is probably the best egg in the Labour Party.

In Leicester 

‘This is for people of Gaza’: Shockat Adam takes Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth’s Leicester South seat

One political commentator has said that “Leicester has clearly become not so much a British constituency as a battleground in some Hindu-Muslim turf war. That is pretty worrying”

I don’t think this has anything to do with the Hindu vote. From what I know and hear of Leicester the Hindus are a force for keeping the wilder excesses of the Muslims in some check. Many of them are old-fashioned conservative with-a-small-c businessmen and women.

Middle East Eye has the names of a half dozen Muslim independents who unseated the previous MP by campaigning on the Gaza ticket.

Finally, this, Labour MP Jess Phillips heckled and booed by pro-Gaza constituents during her acceptance speech

“This election has been the worst election I have ever stood in.”

Jess Phillips is met with boos and jeers from the audience as she narrowly wins her Labour seat in Birmingham Yardley.

Watch #C4BritainDecides NOW on @channel4 until 9am. #GeneralElection2024 pic.twitter.com/Q5sHv6DtQh

— Channel 4 (@Channel4) July 5, 2024

The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley suffered jeers by pro-Palestinian supporters after she beat an independent by just 693.

She looked furious and yelled back: ‘I understand that a strong woman standing up to you is met with such reticence’ before asking for the mob to be thrown out, pointing at them and saying: ‘Can you throw them out?’

After her majority shrank to three figures, she was interrupted by shouts of ‘Jody, Jody’ – in support of the her rival (convert to Islam) Jody McIntyre.

One comment on X

Jess Phillips being heckled by the very people she’s sucked up to over the duration of her political career. Here she calls for them to be thrown out. Day 1 and the problems have already started for @UKLabour