2 May

Reform UK, the UK’s One Nation, just dominated local government elections there (like our State elections - the UK doesn’t have States). It did that by doing what Trump did in the US, targeting the lower socio-economic status voters which the conservatives always pretended to stand for, but really just fired up with slogans with no substance behind them. Voters finally understood that the conservatives were full of shit. Unfortuately Farage and Reform UK (and Trump) are even more full of shit. None of this helped by a first-past-the-post voting system in the UK, coupled to non-compuslory voting, both of which allow batshit crazy loons to take control of towns and nations. Compulsory, preferential voting in Oz almost always protects us from this sort of rubbish. Parts of the US have at least moved towards preferential (‘ranked choice’) voting. But compulsory voting is the critical thing.