I don't know anything about fungi, but here's what I am reliably informed is a lovely Chicken-of-the-Woods in Chorzów, Silesia. 🐔
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Peter Keeling
@PMKeeling@mastodon.me.uk
mastodon 4.6.9🗳️ Elections stuff @DemocracyClub@mastodon.me.uk.
📚 Historian of UK politics.
📍 Bath, UK.
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Joined March 24, 2023
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Fascinating research looking at how deprivation and community need maps on to the 2026 English local election results.
The Lib Dems clean up in the least deprived areas. 'Reform tended to perform most strongly in areas characterised by both higher deprivation and weaker community infrastructure, while the Greens performed relatively well in deprived areas with comparatively stronger community assets.'
https://ocsi.uk/2026/05/18/deprivation-community-need-and-the-2026-local-elections/
I myself have previously complained to Nationwide about the 'quick vote' option, which allows members to vote for all the board-endorsed members and motions, with no comparable 'quick' option to vote against.
As far as I am concerned it's vote rigging. It's used widely in other areas: remember the great National Trust victory against 'Restore Trust'? This was achieved through the quick vote.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/24/nationwide-governance-agm-building-societies-boards
Studies like this are really important and I am pleased it has got coverage. UK election coverage is, in my view, pretty dreadful, and vox pops are a big reason why. If nothing else, it's really lazy journalism.
RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@DemocracyClub/116557657185715812
And the winner of the English local elections is...Mark David Dobson, of the Garforth and Swillington Independents Party.
Mark got the most votes of any candidate (5,007), and if I understand First Past the Post - and I don't - that means he wins. #ukpol
Extremely happy to see that those irritating gaps in Hansard have finally been filled. They have plagued my research for an awful long time.
https://commonshansard.blog.parliament.uk/2026/05/01/historical-hansard-bridging-the-gaps/
Replying to
@ChrisMayLA6
Is anyone aware of a country in which this already happens? I know of plenty (perhaps the majority?) which don't have by-elections at all.
Quite excited for my #SummerReading pile. Two old classics and two newish classics of political history.
Polish poster for 1973 soviet film 'And in the Pacific', about the end of the civil war (it's set in 1922). Polish title was the more straightforward 'Pociąg Pancerny' (Armoured Train').
Took a while to find but the whole film is here. It has some ok battle scenes: https://youtu.be/bWVkGQog_64?si=keJU2vuXcjt81cxi
Poster is part of an exhibition of railway-themed posters at Tarnowskie Góry railway station, Silesia. More on that here: https://youtu.be/2c3cbKiZcJs?si=rF8ErxdK3BhPlcQM
Today I am at Oxfordshire History Centre. Never been to an archive in a disused church before: lovely space.
#generalstrike day 7.
The belief that the press ceased during the strike is a bit of a myth. While print workers were called out, journalists were not part of the TUC and did not strike. Some London newspapers were knocked out, but many regional papers were unaffected, and most at least managed to put out bulletins.
On 10 May the Daily Graphic showcased examples of 'emergency transport: a horse and cart, volunteers manning trains, and a steam lorry.
RE: https://mastodon.me.uk/@PMKeeling/116521617491157064
Now updated with the results. Eleven former MPs, three former MEPs, and one peer have won council seats in the English local elections.
General Strike, day 3.
Like most cities and towns, Bath's trade unions were organised under a local committee which directed the strike locally: they initially received a "magnificent response" from their members.
A major frustration was the lack of reliable information from further afield. On 6 May, Bath Trades and Labour Council wrote to London requesting copies of the TUC paper 'British Worker' and a reply to an earlier letter: "Why no news?"
I count 27 former MPs and five current peers standing for election this May.
Peers can't stand or vote in parliamentary elections, but can in local elections. This is a long tradition - the first chair of the London County Council in 1889 was a peer.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cQgaOyNfFrO6Y_QHtBOjpy5sCwI4wOL_HOgK1uD-aw8/edit?gid=0#gid=0
May Day, 1926. With talks between the Trades Union Congress and the Government clearly failing, the TUC informed its members in 'first line' unions - transport, heavy industry, printing and power - that a sympathy strike would begin on Monday, 4 May.
C.T. Cramp, the secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, was responsible for sending this information to NUR members. Like many TUC leaders, Cramp did not believe the strike was winnable, privately describing it as 'pure fatalism'.
What Reach plc did to UK local news between 2019 and 2025.
- Editorial staff fired: 35%.
- Fall in original content: 80% to 57%.
- Fall in local content: 67% to 52%.
- Median drop in 'critical' local articles: 30 to 13.5 per edition.
"the newspapers in our panel are on a zombie trajectory: original local [critical] content halved over 6 years, replaced in part by centrally produced non-local material, within a shrinking editorial space."
