Never change Britain

👇 (The secondary problem is very few politicians are honest about that choice)

Good to see @KemiBadenoch clarify a Conservative Government would not retrospectively remove ILR from those who have it (unless they commit a crime). Such a policy would be morally indefensible (and, less importantly, politically deeply unpopular)

Good to see @KemiBadenoch clarify a Conservative Government would not retrospectively remove ILR from those who have it (unless they commit a crime). Such a policy would be morally indefensible (and, less importantly, politically very unpopular)

Well said @wesstreeting. Would be good to hear other Ministers - and indeed members of my own party - speaking out against the open racism we are now increasingly seeing from some politicians

A very fair assessment "Brexit has not helped...but it is not the origin of all our woes"

"Not one person has been prosecuted" Next sentence: "Today's not guilty verdict" How can anyone type a tweet like that???

Finally, there was a life lesson for all of us in the result. This is the 14th time Plaid candidate Lindsay Whittle has stood in Caerphilly. If at first you don't succeed... 10/10

The next election may come down to whether voters are more motivated to kick Starmer out or stop Farage getting in 9/10

It was still a good result for Reform, suggesting they are on course to be the second Party in Wales after next year's Senedd election, but it was a corrective to the hype that Farage is a shoe-in to be the next Prime Minister 8/10

If you believe sections of the print media, you would think Nigel Farage is wildly popular, but he's not - about 60% of voters disapprove of him, which leaves Reform vulnerable to such tactical voting 7/10

3. But the other reason is a poll suggesting Reform were on course to win probably motivated some voters to turn out and vote tactically for Plaid to stop them. If this were repeated at a General Election Reform would win fewer seats than the models are predicting 6/10

2. The turnout was 50.4% - very high for a by-election (higher than the turnout in any Senedd election). One reason for that is almost certainly that Reform is attracting some votes from people who don't usually vote, just as the Leave campaign did in the Brexit referendum 5/10

It will be a bigger concern for Labour because Wales is (or was) one of their heartlands (at the last General Election, they won 27 of the 32 Welsh constituencies) 4/10

Labour's vote share dropped from 46% last time (2021 - which wasn't even a particularly good year for them) to just 11%; the Conservatives' share dropped from 17% to just 2%. Both are on course for very heavy losses in next year’s Senedd election 3/10

1. If you think of politics as a market, it is a market that is currently being heavily disrupted - the two players that have dominated it for the last century are being challenged by new entrants and previously small players 2/10

There was a fascinating by-election for the Welsh Senedd seat of Caerphilly last night in which Plaid Cymru and Reform beat Labour into a distant third. The result confirmed two things and suggested something else some of us suspected 🧵 1/10

If you want to understand why this country is deep in debt, the PM appears to believe parents shouldn't have to pay for their children's breakfast (I have no problem with breakfast clubs because some parents do struggle, but the suggestion no parent should have to pay is absurd)

59% of US voters back recognition of a Palestinian state. Difficult to understate the damage Netanyahu has done to Israel's support among western electorates https://t.co/yxegMEAPhK

If @stephenkb is right - and I have no reason to believe he isn't - the Conservative Party has lost both its moral compass and political judgement https://t.co/0EnELScEhy

What do you mean by "culturally coherent" @SirSimonClarke?