Yep, smashed it. I voted for him and I'm pleased for the guy. Not many people have had to put up with the level of shit he's had. I hope the Tories will recognise there's no electoral mileage in banging on about cars and dogwhistling about Muslims, but if they were capable of that, they most likely wouldn't be Tories.
The polls were still way off, though. A 10% lead is great, but it's not a 20% lead!
Yeah, I was worried their misinformation, combined with understandable frustration with some of Labour's actual policies, would swing it to the Tories.
and Labour were already rehearsing their “we never needed London anyway, it’s too full of wokeness and antisemitism, anyway we have the REAL England now” soundbites, anticipating that Hall would get it because of progressive voters staying home or blowing their votes on the Green Party.
Why would they? They’re expecting to be the dominant party of power with the Tories having shat the bed for a generation (see also: 1997), and damned if they’re going to share any of it with any lefty troublemakers.
by abolishing STV and putting it back to first past the post, they hoped the outer boroughs' vote would be enough to swing it in the Tories' favour. Fortunately, Susan Hall was so bad a candidate even large chunks of outer London went "nah, mate, not having that."
Obviously a better result than the Tories, but I'm not a fan of the same person holding the position for a long time. I'd rather Labour had put a new candidate up or one of the other non Tory candidates had won.