It’s a lovely German word that has no equivalent in English. It means pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune. Not something to boast about most of the time, but looking at the election results that have come in so far I’m going to indulge myself! Not only have the Tories lost their Parliamentary seat in Blackpool North, they’re getting hammered across the country in the local elections. Here’s the scores on the doors at the time of writing.

The cherry on the cake was Boris Johnson, the architect of the voter ID gerrymandering scheme hoist by his own petard. He was turned away from a polling station for – not having the correct ID! Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. It’s a perfect metaphor for the shambolic incompetence of the modern Tory party and its leaders.

The Tory’s agony isn’t over. This election is a long, drawn-out affair. Results will continue to come out until Sunday when the results of Mayoral elections will be announced. I’d really like to be a fly on the wall at Conservative Party Headquarters at the moment as I expect the atmosphere is akin to the last days of the bunker. No amount of spinning can disguise how bad these results are. Oh, their might be a couple of positive results where they don’t lose seats, but the trend is clear. They’re doomed.

In this report and video from ITV Anglia the leader of the Tories on Harlow council desperately tries to spin losing as ‘we’ve bucked the trend’. Err, the party’s majority was cut from nine to a single seat! That IS the trend!

Another amusing thing is Reform PLC, the limited company that pretends to be a political party. Despite their polling numbers (they almost beat the Tories into 3rd place in Blackpool South) they’ve not won a single council seat. The only thing they’re good for is abstracting votes from the Tories.

I’ll watch the rest of the results with interest, but today’s a good day…

If you want an intelligent and informed analysis of the results so far (and later) I’d recommend following Britain Elects on Twitter. Here’s a link to their early analysis of performances across the country.

https://publish.twitter.com/?url=https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1786286607232106528#

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