Andy Wootton

I was really hoping #UKLabour would have time to scrap #FPTP before they committed hara-kiri.

I don't see a potential replacement for Starmer who looks like a safer bet that I would vote for. What they need is to play as a team and stop Starmer announcing daft ideas before they've all thought them through. It's not strong leadership to make mistakes on your own. If they were collective mistakes then they may as well go now and let Honest Nige finish us off.

@ReggieHere @brumgreens.bsky.social Why should it? An electoral system shouldn't be designed to get the result one party wants. That's how Conservatives left us stuck with #FPTP and they are now suffering from it. Things change. It needs to be 'a fair game'. I'd like there to be no wasted votes or need for tactical voting, for every vote to at least allow honest expression of people's democratic will.

I've noticed that Sky News is displaying the colours of England's (?) political parties with Lib Dems to the left of Labour, on last night's election results story. I think that's fair. A "broad-Left coalition" doesn't need to include Labour, if Greens and LibDems keep growing.
I wouldn't be trying to get rid of Starmer, if I was them. I didn't hear any reporting on the LibDems during the campaign but they've grown anyway, partly because #FPTP forces us to vote against parties we don't want.

Feeling a bit left out because we haven't had any election today, I thought I'd watch half an hour of #BBCNewsnight but that was cut short by the sad news that #ToryLaura K will be hosting it from 23:10. I was hoping for some balanced reporting now the polling stations are closed. I thought they told us she was leaving.

@tompearce49 I think it is best not to link urgently needed electoral reform to replacing the House of Lords. The Lords have been more reliable at representing the will of the (English and Welsh, at least) people than the elected chamber over the last few years so that change will be tangled in the weeds for years.

We NEED a simple change to a transferable votes system to save British democracy. It's obviously fairer than #FPTP and a very simple change to replace the need for tactical voting.

@Geri It explicitly says it's both: #hope #nothate. Reform offer working people nothing but a target for their hate that isn't The Rich. They deflect blame away from grifting billionaires onto poor immigrants so successfully that some of the worst of the Far Right are the children of wealthy immigrants. The wealthy failed to 'grow the economy'and got so cocky about their power that they launched a class war to raid the poor.

Tories promised meritocracy. They lied. Now they are Reform.

@kibcol1049 It's "too close to call" but predicted 60% Left to 30% Far Right, so #FPTP has been proved to be anti-democratic. Labour needs to fix this before a General Election or we risk losing our freedom to say "No!" to fascism, without violence. Reform are already planning to take Council pensions, to invest in their dodgy friends. I don't trust the Far Right with money. Electoral Reform needs urgent cross-party co-operation. Let the record show Farage thought so too, a couple of years ago.

@andybalaam #OhNoHeDidnt Jack fought the AI Giant by chopping down the beanstalk and taking the ill-gotten(?) gold, thus destroying the means of production to prevent one capitalist with excessive means from potentially devaluing the gold market and creating a future shortage, from which he, his mother and a useless cow might benefit.
What a #pantomime !

@randahl @dave That's very confusing because now her can't claim "#Hexit meanz #Hexit".
His #FanBoiz won't be able to remember a slogan with more than 3 words in it! He's losing the plot(ting) AND the Manchester by-election now. What would Trump/Hitler do? How does Populism fight a nicer populist who isn't a massive racist?

#UKPolitics in #Wales. #NoKings
Nigel Farage has appointed his own #PrinceOfWales without any election or membership oversight. The 'candidate' was previously a London councillor but identifies as Welsh.

Reporters were booed for 'asking questions'. Seems familiar, from another #Authoritarian regime
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9wx9d907ydt?post=asset%3Aa444b3bc-6f74-4c57-bcf0-104964eb8df2#post

Brian May has said Queen won't tour in the USA because it is a dangerous place. How is #UStourism doing this year?

@quixoticgeek Every chance if only governments would stop Google and Apple preventing it with their monopolist control of access to hardware drivers. Anti-trust law should be used against the #TechBrollocky What a pity Mozilla didn't continue with #FirefoxOS rather than leaping into the bucket of AI slop. They'd be cleaning-up now. I keep hoping Raspberry Pi will move into phones.

The dog went out. She said she may be some time. #UKsnow #stormgoretti

For over a year now, I've been trying to learn more about #music theory, with practical experimentation on instruments I haven't played before. The main thing I've learned is: why #ukelele players always own so many instruments. Nylon strings take days to stabilise after changing between tunings and only sound right in a fairly limited range. Steel 'is more flexible' :-/.

I've been trying to play tenor #banjo chords on a classical guitar with 4 strings. I think I'm going to need to get longer fingers. Arguably, these are #tenorguitar chords but with space-time stretched. I'm sure the pain will go, given time.
(I forgot to put the capo on 5, to make GDAE into CGDA; and closer together. Not 7! It's "Cats Go", not "Go Cats". Rookie error!)
I have a small GDAE ukulele but it's an octave too high, which is a different type of pain.)

@kevlin @lotte I was using a formula for heat loss last week, to help me work out how much insulation to wrap my house in. It used temperature difference between inside and outside in #Kelvin. Neither my house nor British Winters are THAT cold! I think Centigrade will be sufficient. :-)

Guitars are tuned an octave below where guitar music is written. I still laugh about the time I bought a guitar for my kids from someone who didn't know that and the high-E string mysteriously kept breaking. Clearly, I do not have 'perfect pitch'.
Fast forward to today when the Linux 'GNU Lingot' tuner app patiently explained to me, musically 'keen but subnormal', that my voice is an octave lower than I thought, for very obvious reasons. #SlowLearner but #EverythingIsRelative.