James Ball

I grew up in the countryside, playing out all the time, etc. Moved to the city for uni at 18 and immediately developed horrendous hayfever.

Would 100% watch this movie

Their vote share is back down to 10%, so...yeah.

Zack has a habit of saying stuff off the cuff and then doing something different later when he's consulted / had time to think. I'm just pricing that in. Maybe he'll run! But that's not an announcement of that.

You set the bar high on that, it was a really good tour

Come down to London and vox pip him

I think his ego might make him run there, but I think doing so would almost certainly be an error. I will add that there is a pattern of Zack shooting from the lip with the media, then doing something different after he's actually consulted.

That isn't an announcement he's standing.

Suspect Labour would rather run against Polanski than almost anyone else the Greens would put up there.

The Greens have a distant shot at winning the seat if it's a referendum on Labour. They have no shot, imo, of winning it if it's a referendum on Polanski.

Yes. But he's surprisingly active in the walthamstow Facebook groups and seems to have personal animus against Creasy

I think you've just misread Sam's post.

He wants Walthamstow I think.

The one constructive thing out of Starmer's resignation might be forcing Burnham to think about London earlier than he would otherwise have to. Because Labour absolutely cannot win an election without London. It is, these days, Labour's truest heartland – and is taken utterly for granted.

London was battered by cuts and neglect for 14 years under the Conservatives. Finally it got a Labour government with a leader representing a London constituency…who screwed it on council funding and infrastructure spend. Who was then replaced with a guy whose whole shtick was anti-London.

The labour party does really, thoroughly enjoy smacking around the people who vote for it, while chasing the votes of people who don't (some of whom mostly exist in the imaginations of politicians).

Leaders don't lose. Terrible for the rep. So why stand in a long shot seat when you can wait for a better one? Put a good candidate in there and you get the credit if they win, but not the sting if they lose.

He's a peer now, so nope

Polanski won't actually stand in this seat. He'll "consider" it for some attention/coverage then wait for a safer one imo (which is the correct decision too)