Sunday, June 13, 2004
Respect in the Press... posted by Richard Seymour
Well, after slagging off the Indie, Respect is happy to receive the psephological approbation of John Curtice in today's edition - and has withdrawn it's advice to boycott the Indie. Silly idea anyway, even if the Indie thoroughly deserved it. Why not The Observer and The Grauniad if you're going to do that? Anyway, here's John Curtice's assessment :Meanwhile, Labour may need to look over its shoulder in a different direction - George Galloway's Respect coalition. Respect did not fight the local elections so it could not damage Labour there. But it did fight the London election. And one little-noticed feature of the result was that Respect nearly managed to pass the 5 per cent threshold needed to win an Assembly seat. Indeed, it won 16 per cent in the City and East constituency where a large Muslim community appears to have backed Respect's anti-war stance.
Even if Respect wins no more than 2 or 3 per cent of the vote across the country as a whole, they are likely to be votes Labour can ill afford to lose. So Tony Blair should certainly not assume that his troubles are all over either.
(Hat tip to Batty .)
I also should credit the Guardian for noticing, yesterday, "the surprisingly strong performance by the Respect coalition" in London's elections.
The Observer today noticed "the sudden popularity of ... the antiwar Respect party in London".
While someone's local paper mentions:
A small decline in the Green vote to 11,921 was blamed on a swing to the hard-left Respect party. But they still came well ahead of the UK Independence Party and the Respect Coalition which polled a healthy 8,685 and 5,150 respectively, despite entering the election as fringe parties.
Hey, you grab what appraisal you can get in this fricking league...